Phil Vischer's Voting Video & Kevin McGary on Every BLM

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October 28, 2020

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00:01: Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We're going to do, hopefully, a short episode.
00:07: We're going to talk about a Phil Bisher video that I haven't seen that a few people have asked me to comment on. For those who don't know,
00:12: Phil Bisher was the creator of the children's show VeggieTales, and then I'm going to have Kevin McGarry explain his organization,
00:18: Every Black Life Matters, which is meant to be a counter movement to the Black Lives Matter movement. He's going to weigh in on the election as well, and so let's get started.
00:28: Number one, Phil Bisher. Phil Bisher is someone I normally ...
00:33: I don't find his content overly interesting or needing a reply, but what's really happened with Phil Bisher, it seems to me at least, is he's gone leftist this year for some reason.
00:47: Something has caused him to veer towards the left, and so he's producing content. Of course, he's a guy that has a ...
00:54: He's got money, he's got equipment, he's got a studio. He's able to do this and do it well, at least his presentation.
01:03: His arguments, though, in my opinion, just aren't that great, and I'll give you an example of that real quick.
01:08: I thought this was actually a worthwhile thread to look at, even to learn from. Phil Bisher's recently basically made the case that, hey, overturning
01:18: Roe v. Wade, that's basically the pro -life movement, and even if we do it, it won't really save a lot of lives, so why bother?
01:24: Why put so much capital into doing that when if we vote for Biden, we'll get so many other good things?
01:31: I suspect if he hasn't said it, he's at least given the argument for voting for Joe Biden. Here's the thread that I thought was interesting.
01:40: Phil Bisher tries to ask someone who challenged him on this, what do we do if a pro -life candidate is promoting an anti -immigrant or anti -refugee worldview?
01:48: Trump's secure on borders, and that would be ... Look at the way he's twisting it. Or an ethno -nationalist worldview.
01:55: What's an ethno -nationalist worldview? Like a Nazi? What are you talking about? Does abortion still trump all other concerns, even if the candidate would have little actual positive impact on the unborn?
02:05: If Jesus asks us to defend the least of these, which includes the poor, immigrants, refugees, the incarcerated, the sick, as well as the unborn, do we still favor the pro -life candidate if we fear their policies and worldview will hurt the rest of the list?
02:20: This is an argument that's saying, hey, this is one pro -life issue amidst many pro -life issues, and that's where he's coming down on this.
02:32: Capstone Report kind of got into him. Let's see if I can find it. He said,
02:38: Capstone Report says, yeah, people like him are doing the work of antichrist. He should just own it. Phil Bisher says, you know, 90 % of African -American
02:45: Christians voted Democrat in 2016, right? Is the entire black church doing the work of antichrist in your book?
02:50: Now, this is kind of sick, to be honest, but I've seen, he's not the only one. David Platt kind of did this in his book.
02:56: Like, well, who am I to tell the black church they're wrong? How about the law of God? How about like, I mean, like, you know, this is kind of like using,
03:05: I'm going to just say it, it's almost like using the black Christians as human shields to be like, well, look, majority of them voted for the
03:12: Democrat. So therefore, it's, you know, you're kind of like you're racist if you question this.
03:19: So we're going to use them as human shields to support our Democrat vote. So here's Capstone Report. Anyone, regardless of race, that votes for a pro -baby murdering candidate is, is, stop trying to race bait.
03:28: That's demonic too. Excellent response. Phil Bisher. Got it. Black church is antichrist. What if I vote for separating children from their parents, antichrist or pro -christ?
03:36: Of course, this is an issue that, again, the, you know, the issue is you have criminals taking kids into the country, using them to try to claim asylum.
03:45: We don't know if those are their parents. You have to separate them to find out and, you know, to, to simplify that into we're, we're the ones separating children from their parents.
03:55: No, we're trying to vet people. We're trying to make sure that kidnapping isn't going on, Phil. But Capstone Report says, oh, you mean separating criminals from their children like we do when we put people in jail for domestic crimes?
04:06: Try harder. Phil Bisher says, what if I cut off funding for eradication of polio? Bad or good? Well, I don't, that's not in the federal government's, you know, that's not, it shouldn't be at least according to the
04:18: Constitution. That's not in their jurisdiction. But Capstone Report, I wasn't aware the Bible mandated spending on polio.
04:24: It does ban baby murder. Excellent. And then Phil Bisher says the Bible mandates leaving human suffering, which comes in many forms.
04:31: Matthew 25 is a pretty good place to start. Matthew 25 is not about government policy, though. That's the point.
04:37: And so Phil Bisher, this is just, it's, it's laughable. But this, this is guy, you know, he's selling this kind of argumentation to Christians, dulling their conscience, in my opinion, to do something like vote for a
04:52: Biden. So let's play the video and see what Phil Bisher has to say here. It's over 15 minutes.
04:58: I don't think we'll get through all of it, but let's see. Why do white Christians vote Republican and black Christians vote Democrat?
05:04: Let me comment real quick. This is irrelevant if you're trying to find out what the right thing to do is with your vote. I've seen this used as, like I said, a human shield that David Platt's used it.
05:12: Well, who are we to judge whether someone votes for a Democrat if they're a Christian? Because black Christians vote Democrat. That's not an argument.
05:18: That's not an argument. It doesn't matter if all the white Christians were right or wrong. That has no bearing on truth.
05:24: So I just want to make that point real quick. Everyone knows conservative Christians vote
05:29: Republican. It's like one of the rules of nature. The sun comes up in the east and conservative Christians vote Republican.
05:35: Yeah, not true anymore. Someone was telling me the other day, I think it was a Rasmussen poll they were citing, where it was like over 20 % of evangelicals, self -proclaimed evangelicals, were voting for Biden.
05:45: Things are shifting. Things are changing. I don't know that this is a hard and fast rule, not like it was.
05:52: Unless they're black. Oh, right. Most African Americans self -identify as Christian. Okay. So he says conservative
05:58: Christian here. This is kind of important. Think about this for a minute with me. We got to find out if later in the video he delineates.
06:04: Does he delineate between conservative Christians in a theological orthodox sense and cultural
06:10: Christians? Now that might be a hard thing to do. It might be in some ways an impossible thing to do if someone hasn't asked those questions in a poll.
06:16: But here's the point. He says conservative Christians vote Republican unless they're black.
06:21: Then they vote Democrat. Well, he's talking about conservatism in the orthodox theological sense, not in the political sense because black conservative
06:28: Christians vote Democrat. So obviously he's not. So if that's true, then he's talking about people who must believe in the virgin birth, the
06:35: Trinity, the salvation by grace through faith, final destination of hell or heaven, the sufficiency and errancy of scripture.
06:47: I mean, that's what we're talking about then if he's talking about theological conservatives. I happen to know though, and I don't know all the numbers on this, but there are a lot of people.
06:57: And it's not just black people. It's all kinds of people. It's white people. It's Hispanics.
07:03: In certain areas, in certain regions, in certain classes, if you will, socioeconomic brackets, essentially there are denominations that are popular in certain areas of the country that,
07:17: I'll give you an example like T .D. Jakes and oneness Pentecostalism. That's very popular in the black community.
07:23: Oneness Pentecostalism, but it's not just the black community. I mean, there's, I think a lot of Hispanics are also involved in oneness
07:28: Pentecostalism. I wouldn't consider someone who's a oneness Pentecostal to be an Orthodox Christian.
07:34: They're not a conservative Christian in my mind. So are we including them in this?
07:39: That's a good question I think to ask. I know people, even in my family, people in the deep
07:45: South who, it's a cultural thing for them. They're not Christians by conviction necessarily, but some of them are, they claim it and they go to church maybe even, but do they really believe all the things that the
07:58: Bible teaches about these things? Not necessarily. And so that's a really important distinction to make. Is he talking about theologically
08:04: Orthodox believers who are voting for Democrats or is he just talking about people who identify as Christian in a generic sense?
08:14: So here's one more other point I need to make. White Christians who are just Protestants, who aren't evangelical,
08:22: I believe, I know for sure the percentage is much higher voting for Democrats.
08:27: I believe it's majority. So if you're going to a mainline denomination and you're a white
08:33: Christian, especially if you're in the Northeast, let's say, look at this regionally and you claim to be a
08:39: Christian, you're voting for the Democrat, most likely. So you can slice this pie in all sorts of different ways.
08:45: He just wants to slice it white and black. Conservative Christians white, conservative Christians black. I'm saying right off the top, this is getting, this could be getting the foot started in the wrong direction because it's oversimplifying something that actually has a lot more complexities to it.
09:01: Oh, right. Most African -Americans self -identify as Christian and most African -Americans vote
09:06: Democrat. Look at the numbers. In 2016, 81 % of white evangelical
09:13: Christians voted for Donald Trump. For many Christians, it's just assumed the Republican Party is the party for Christians.
09:19: But what about black Christians? Pew Research interviewed validated voters after the 2016 election, people they could verify actually voted.
09:28: When they looked at black Protestant Christians, there is no official category for black evangelicals because most pollsters have decided evangelical is a white term, but.
09:37: Okay. All right. That's, that verifies what I was just saying. He's not making these delineations at all.
09:44: He is telling us that there are black Christians, conservative
09:50: Christians voting this way, white conservative Christians voting this way. But in actuality, he doesn't know whether these are black conservative
09:58: Christians in the Orthodox sense, in a theological Orthodox sense. 70 % of black people claim to be
10:06: Protestant, 80 % claim to be Christian. You know, if, if we just looked at, let's say,
10:13: Protestant mainline denominations who are white, we would find them voting for liberals.
10:20: So he doesn't, you know, adjust or try to, all right, well, we're going to add them to this category of evangelical, or we're going to compare, try our best to compare apples with apples.
10:29: He's just looking at black Christians, people who claim to be Protestant, and then white evangelicals, and then comparing them.
10:39: So this, it's not the best way to make this comparison, but okay, we'll keep going here.
10:44: See what else he says. That's a whole different video. When we look at black Protestant Christians, 96 % voted for Hillary Clinton, the
10:54: Democrat, 96%. So 81 % of white evangelical
10:59: Christians voted for Trump, and 96 % of black Protestant Christians voted for Clinton.
11:05: And it's pretty much like that in every election. White evangelicals vote Republican, and black Protestants vote
11:11: Democrat. Why is that? Don't they read the same Bible, pray to the same God? Which group doesn't understand that they're voting for the wrong party?
11:20: Well, here's the question, and let's see if he answers this, but it's, is it more for cultural reasons, or is it more because they're trying to apply the
11:26: Word of God and the principles in the Word of God? And I understand there's cultural reasons for doing things, and you grow up in a culture, but look, hopefully the, this is an evangelical guy here, hopefully the emphasis is on trying to figure out, okay, what does, how does, would the
11:44: Bible guide us on this? Because the differences that he's describing then, if it's truly they're both worshiping the same
11:52: God, then there's two different options here. One's being more consistent, right, with the way that they're applying the
12:00: Bible to this situation, and the way that they're trying to faithfully execute their Christian duties.
12:06: And then the other possibility is, well, basically, I mean, there's actually three.
12:12: One of them is neither of them are, care about what the Bible says, they're just doing this for other motives, maybe cultural motives, right?
12:19: And then the third possibility is that the cultural issues are just, and the place you come from, your social location is just so powerful that it overwhelms any attempt to be objective and apply the
12:34: Bible to a situation like voting. Those are really the three possibilities. So let's see where he comes down on this.
12:44: To make things even more confusing, if we go back to 1890, these guys were
12:50: Republicans and these guys were Democrats. What happened?
12:55: How did we end up where we are today? Well, let's go back and find out. In 1870, the 15th
13:02: Amendment gave African American men the right to vote. Since they had this guy to thank for it, and the brand new
13:08: Republican Party, and since most Southern slave owners at the time were Democrats, almost all
13:14: African Americans voted Republican. I mean, technically, it wasn't Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln was dead by then, but anyway. African Americans voted
13:20: Republican. In fact, the first 23 black congressmen were all Republicans.
13:27: And don't forget as well, he's not mentioning this, but at the time, I mean, you had almost anarchy in the
13:32: South. The Freedmen's Bureau was even paying for votes. This is a documented thing. So it's not just as simple as, you know, they're looking at Abraham Lincoln, they want to thank him.
13:42: I'm sure that factored into it. It certainly did. But there's other things going on there as well.
13:47: Not all Southern Democrats were these guys, but enough of them were that newly enfranchised
13:53: African Americans were not likely to vote Democrat anytime soon. Most Southern Democrats considered themselves conservatives.
13:59: That sounds weird to hear. Everyone knows Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberal, but the two parties didn't shake out so clearly on conservative and liberal until the 1970s and 80s.
14:10: Conservative Southern Democrats look back in history to happier days, the glory days of the
14:15: South before Abe Lincoln and those. All right. This is this is melodrama right here. Conservatives, even
14:21: Democrats. And remember, there were a lot of Democrats in the North who were conservative as well. Andrew Johnson, I mean, he, you know, essentially ended up being a more conservative
14:33: Democrat. He was against the radical Republicans. Even if you asked conservative
14:39: Democrats in the South, you know, what makes you conservative or what is conservatism to you? It wouldn't have been, well, we just miss the days of slavery.
14:47: You know, we're pining for that. It would have been their view of the Constitution, strict construction, that kind of thing.
14:53: So this is kind of just an unnecessary little aside that Phil Fisher makes to impugn them.
15:01: And there's I mean, look, we don't agree with most people in the past on a variety of issues. There's ways to impugn them if you want.
15:09: But but at least let's be accurate about it if we're going to do it. That wasn't what made them conservative. Those darn
15:15: Yankees messed up everything. Those darn Yankees. I think that's a Disney film.
15:20: But Honest Abe didn't last forever, as you may have heard. And things got messy for black Americans pretty quick.
15:26: Republican presidents kept federal troops in the South to ensure African -Americans could vote. But when the 1876 election was in a deadlock with both parties claiming victory,
15:36: America was in danger of falling into civil war again. A group of northern Republicans and southern
15:42: Democrats met in secret and made a deal. Rutherford Hayes, the Republican candidate, would become president.
15:49: In exchange, all federal troops, the ones protecting black rights, would be removed from the
15:55: South. Yep. Northern Republicans sort of threw southern black people under the bus.
16:01: OK, so this is this is actually kind of mythological right here because he's trying to make this out like, you know, this was somehow a betrayal of black people.
16:12: And that's what the Republicans did, this dirty deal with the Democrats in the South. It wasn't about betraying black interests.
16:19: In fact, the Redeemer governments that took charge after the reconstruction was ended were actually more lenient.
16:28: That's not when primarily when the Jim Crow laws started. It was actually with the defeat of Redeemer governments that you started seeing more of that kind of thing.
16:38: So kind of an oversimplification here. The federal troops were gone, the guys in the pointy hats clamped down hard, and most
16:46: African -Americans now had a hard time voting for anyone. New Jim Crow laws stripped away many of the rights they had just won.
16:53: So for many black people, the Compromise of 1877 felt like a betrayal at the hands of the
17:00: Republican Party. Then comes the Great Migration. Living with these guys in charge wasn't much fun, to put it mildly.
17:08: So I will say this. Phil Vischer has stayed true to the cartooning.
17:14: He when he tells a story, he very much goes into the cartoon kind of.
17:19: And it's hard to do that with history. I'll be honest, it's kind of dangerous to do that with history. But the great.
17:25: So this is interesting. So if Phil Vischer's narrative is true, right. And it's just it's Republicans betrayed them, sold them out.
17:33: Well, they're, you know, they're moving to live in urban cities where there's Republicans. A more
17:39: I'll be honest with you guys, a more a better explanation for a lot of this is that the
17:46: South was completely defeated. There was a lot of it was very hard, a lot of starvation.
17:52: The North had actually kept blacks out in large part. And those laws were starting to loosen up by this time.
17:59: And they were they went, like most people go to another region to seek better opportunity economically.
18:05: Millions of African -Americans abandoned the South for jobs in new factories. He's right about that. It's jobs in Chicago, Cleveland and Philadelphia.
18:13: And guess what? In the North, you could vote. Many transplanted African -Americans still felt a loyalty to the party of Lincoln.
18:20: But given the fact that no one in Washington was paying much attention to the. Depending on where you were in the North. Needs of black families.
18:27: The NAACP in 1926 argued that blacks should be loyal to neither party.
18:33: Between 1868 and 1898, 22 African -American representatives were sent to Congress from the
18:40: South after federal troops. All right, we're going to skip ahead a little bit for the sake of time. I don't know what his point is here exactly.
18:45: Let's go to the middle here. Political parties over the last 80 years. Strom Thurmond was a
18:50: Southern Democrat and governor of South Carolina in the late 1940s. He hadn't had a huge problem with Roosevelt's New Deal since Rose.
18:58: OK, just so you know, and I'm skipping some of this, the black people statistically.
19:03: OK, and I haven't looked into the methodology behind the statistics, but a lot of them came out for Woodrow Wilson, who was, by the way, very white supremacist and stuff.
19:13: But they came out for him. But Franklin Roosevelt is the guy that usually is point to to say that's when black people started really voting
19:21: Democrat. I mean, Franklin Roosevelt did something that hasn't been. I mean, he had
19:26: Southern whites voting for him. He had Southern blacks voting for him. He had he had a lot of people. He had a landslide victory.
19:33: And, you know, he he did very well for himself politically. And but that's when people usually say,
19:38: OK, that's when you see a trend. And that trend has continued until this day. So that's really the source.
19:45: And Franklin Roosevelt promised a lot of things to a lot of people. He was going to be a miracle worker, essentially, with all his government programs.
19:53: And a lot of people bought into it. Let's see where he's going here. Strom Thurmond. OK, Strom Thurmond was a segregationist, at least in his early life.
20:04: I think he renounced that later. You got Kennedy. I'm sure he's probably saying that Kennedy was more lenient.
20:09: A major civil rights bill to end discrimination against African -Americans. Five months later,
20:16: Kennedy was assassinated. His successor, Lyndon Johnson, vowed to finish the fight for civil rights in honor of Kennedy and propelled by goodwill toward Kennedy and aided by progressive
20:27: Republicans. Johnson was able to pass the raft of progressive Republicans. That's interesting to me.
20:34: I don't have progressive Republicans. I don't know that it was it was Republicans.
20:39: It wasn't progressive Republicans that helped with the civil rights legislation. Of legislation that would.
20:46: And furthermore, if we're going to talk about Lyndon B. Johnson, are we going to talk about all his racial comments and why he thought setting up basically a system of welfare was going to ensure
20:58: Democratic victories because they get the black vote? Let's see if he talks about segregation in America for segregationists like Strom Thurmond.
21:05: The fact that Johnson, a Southern Democrat, had led the charge was the last straw in 1964.
21:12: Thurmond announced that going forward, he was a Republican. Ah, the great switch.
21:18: I knew this was coming. So this is talked about a lot in more progressive circles. The idea that, well, the Republicans were they became the racist because all the
21:26: Democrats in the South who were the real racists ended up becoming Republican. But the reality is Herbert Hoover won,
21:33: I think, most, if not all of the Southern states. He was a Republican. You had a lot of Republicans starting to go over after kind of being disillusioned with Truman and FDR.
21:44: A lot of Republicans or Democrats in the South started voting Republican for Eisenhower in his second term.
21:50: He picked up, I think, what, Florida, Virginia, I think Tennessee. There's a few. He got a bunch of Southern states.
21:56: And this was after he had sent in troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to make sure that it was integrated.
22:03: So this is kind of a simplified trope that gets put out there. The senators,
22:09: I think there were, what, a little over 20 senators who were Democrats who opposed integration who are the
22:17: I should say opposed the Civil Rights Act. And there was only like one to there was a handful.
22:23: I think it was one who ended up becoming Republicans. I mean, the Democrats who supported that basically stayed
22:28: Democrat even afterwards. So so this is kind of I mean, and using Strom Thurmond, I don't know exactly when he changed his position, but he definitely changed his position.
22:39: And if I'm not mistaken, I think Strom Thurmond was the one who actually became a Christian, like a real Christian, not a cultural
22:46: Christian like most people in the United States at that time were became a
22:51: Christian. And he actually renounced his support for segregation and those kinds of things.
22:56: But we digress. Let's see more what Phil Fisher has to say. I know where this is going.
23:02: Nationist Democrats like Thurmond jumped to the Republican Party in droves and the South. And did
23:08: Thurmond say that's why he did it? You know, and is that what about all the majority of the
23:13: Democrats who stayed in their party? Like the vast majority and shifting from blue to red.
23:19: The identity of the Democratic Party as progressive was settling in. And a new wave of conservative
23:24: Republicans was about to shift the brand. The identity of the Democratic Party has been progressive, at least since Woodrow Wilson.
23:31: OK, this wasn't settling in there as well. The Republican candidate for president that year represented a new conservative.
23:39: We're going to vilify Goldwater, aren't we? Barry Goldwater was definitely not a Rockefeller Republican. He hoped to pick up disenfranchised
23:46: Southern Democrats by opposing the civil rights bill. No, no. Barry Goldwater had principled objections, constitutional objections to the civil rights bill.
23:56: Not, oh, I'm just hoping to pick up the Southern Democrats because I'm a racist. That's the insinuation. It's false.
24:02: And his message of states rights and limited federal government sounded a lot like what segregationists had been saying for years.
24:09: As a result, Goldwater. All right, let's let's give it a head. Failed in every other legal and school prayer isn't.
24:16: But when black Christians look at the Supreme Court, they see the reason they can vote and pursue housing and employment without blatant discrimination.
24:24: That difference in perspective has a huge impact on whether you see the federal government as part of the problem or part of the solution.
24:31: All right. He does have there is sort of a point here to be made. If you believe, like most people in the area that I even grew up in the
24:39: Northeast who are white, believe that the government is responsible for securing rights, but also for enacting social change and giving out benefits and stuff, you're going to be more likely to vote for them because you don't see the government centralized authorities a threat.
24:56: You think it's a good thing. So so there's there's on a level, on a certain level, this actually makes sense.
25:02: Now, interestingly to me, most of the older people I've met, including minorities, tend to be more conservative.
25:10: Now, I haven't seen polls on this. I don't know exactly what that means, but but it could mean that those who actually suffered through or, you know, were in danger, possibly if they went to certain areas where there were where there was segregation, where there could have been violence, et cetera.
25:28: They had those deprivations. They they seem to me, at least this is just again, this is
25:33: John's opinion. I haven't done a lot of research on this, but they seem to be more likely to actually go for the
25:39: Republican. Now, if that's true, that would be interesting. Someone probably should should look that up and just see if that is true.
25:48: One of the things, though, that I wanted to say is that I realized something as I was taking a class, ironically, on pulp culture.
25:57: And it was that before the civil rights legislation ever happened, there was already a cultural change taking place kind of organically.
26:06: To be honest with you, it wasn't it wasn't being forced by anyone. And you can see this with the guys, the rockabilly guys from the
26:12: South, you know, the white white rock and rollers. But they were they were southerners. They grew up in rubbing shoulders with guys who were black, and they took a lot of that kind of that style.
26:25: I mean, even Elvis kind of imitates a black preacher. He grew up in a Pentecostal church that was integrated. And in Memphis, it was he dressed like a lot of the black singers, you know, would dress and stuff.
26:35: I mean, he he borrowed a lot and he didn't think about it as stealing. Some people today, oh, he's a racist. He was stealing their stuff.
26:41: No, it was just it was the creative environment of Memphis. And a lot of the rockabilly guys were like that.
26:46: Well, here's the thing in their concerts, early concerts, they would have been segregated. And by the end of the concert, it was integrated and no one cared.
26:53: This was a change that was happening in the culture. And I'm sure if if, you know, I don't know if there's been studies done on this,
26:59: I'd be curious, but I'm sure there are other ways, other indicators, other barometers that could be used to see that.
27:07: If you don't know that, if you don't know that a cultural change was happening, then it seems like the federal government just came in and smashed through a racist system that would have perpetuated itself indefinitely.
27:18: I'm not convinced that's the case. I think most people who live through it, because I've asked, I've asked a number of older folks about this, just say, what was it like?
27:25: What was it worse? Was it better as far as, quote unquote, you know, race relations? And everyone
27:31: I've ever asked has said, you know what? It was actually where I was, at least it was better than it is now.
27:37: And, you know, these are there's not scientific, there's just people I've talked to about it. But I wonder, you know, whether or not the belief, in fact, this is really not something
27:50: I have to wonder about. It's a fact, the belief that the federal government came in as the savior will certainly influence your view of the federal government and whether it's dangerous or not, whether consolidating that power is a good or a bad thing.
28:02: If that's the only only thing you're looking at. So I think actually
28:08: Phil Fisher has has sort of a point to be made here. But it could also be that there's a a conditioning going on that people because people today haven't lived through those deprivations who have been born, but they they're conditioned into thinking that it was the federal government who solved all the problems, always the federal government, who's the solution to these things.
28:30: And I'm not so sure that's the case with segregation. And would we still have it with us if the federal government hadn't stepped in?
28:40: I doubt we would. I don't. There's actually I can pretty I'm pretty confident in saying that.
28:46: No, no, it would not have lasted. It was already. I mean, those laws would not have even been able to be passed if there was not social pressure to do so.
28:54: There was not already a change taking place. And and I know Fisher likes to throw out the word progressive.
29:01: But, you know, it was it was progressives who were also very, very behind this idea that there were different races.
29:09: And this was a scientific thing and sort of this ethnic determinism and and progressives change their views on racial separation, et cetera.
29:22: So so so I'm not so convinced that this is just something that is in this this consciousness that just has existed and still exists.
29:30: And it's within it's being passed down by tradition. That could be part of it. But there's also a conditioning going on.
29:35: There's a retelling of the story that just gives all credit to the federal government. And, you know, if that happens, whether you're white, black, doesn't matter who you are, then if you think that that's that's the savior, that's the one that also is going to secure your goodies, then, hey, more, more, more support for that centralized authority is a good thing.
29:55: That that's the conclusion that you would probably draw from that, you know, more support so that they can not just secure my rights, but also my benefits.
30:03: Those are the goodies, by the way, when I say that. So let's keep going here. Having the right to hear a Christian prayer in your local public school doesn't mean much if you're not allowed to attend your local public school.
30:15: And think about the words progressive and conservative. A progressive believes things should be improved by making progress, by moving forward, by progressing.
30:25: A conservative believes the good things we present. That's for here we go.
30:31: Progressive is just progressing like something like I guess everyone just agrees on. We're progressing.
30:36: How about it's more of like a Fabian socialist idea of we're going to slowly instead of through revolution, enact our socialism.
30:43: That that's more what what progressivism is. And conservative. Presently have are at risk of being lost and need to be conserved or even revive from the past.
30:52: OK, conservative is not just about reviving things from the past. There's a recognition within conservatism that things can change. Actually, that's the idea behind common law in some ways, that things are the principles are applied.
31:02: It builds on itself. But there but as principles are applied to new unique situations and so forth, you can have changes.
31:09: I mean, it's it's not it's actually concerned with making sure that we secure eternal things, eternal truths, eternal principles, kind of platonic, to be honest, in a way.
31:20: This is the Burkean conservative. I'm going back to English common law here. And that mindset of Edmund Burke and kind of if you read
31:28: Russell Kirk, conservative mind, that's what you find. This is they're not just against change and we just got to secure the past.
31:35: It's not there's true and valuable things in the past. It's Chesterton's fence. So Vischer's oversimplifying this.
31:41: So the best way to explain why white Christians vote for conservative candidates and black Christians vote for progressive candidates may simply be this.
31:50: What do we see when we look in the rearview mirror? White Christians see a simpler time when everyone went to church, when we prayed in school, when abortion was illegal and gender roles were clear.
32:03: White Christians may look, here's the thing. I don't know of any white
32:08: Christian who doesn't also see flaws in the United States. And we don't compare.
32:14: This is one of the differences between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives don't compare the United States to perfection.
32:20: Conservatives generally compare the United States to the alternative. There's a big difference when you realize that people are actually trying to get into this country.
32:29: The people who think it's such a crummy place for their social group don't seem to want to leave. They still stay here for the most part.
32:37: This has been a good place. It's been provided a lot of opportunities. Yeah, there's been deprivations. Yeah, there's been hardship.
32:42: Yeah, there's been barriers. But despite all those things, it's been actually better than the alternative.
32:51: I mean, look, I've said this before, you know, compare, go look at the country that an immigrant group has come from, compare that country socioeconomically, use whatever factor, whatever, you know, barometer you want to use and compare it to the
33:06: United States where you can have more opportunity, freedom, economic mobility, et cetera. And, and usually, you know, the case is there's no way that you would have that in the country that you would have come from.
33:17: So the United States has been a great place despite flaws. That's, that's the way conservatives look at this place.
33:23: It's not just a rose colored glasses kind of thing, which Phil Vischer is insinuating that. It's, it's a realism.
33:30: It's looking at, at, yep. And we know what, um, we, there's a lot of things that have been corrected.
33:35: There's a lot of problems today, frankly, worse problems in many ways, uh, that need to be corrected. Uh, the profaning of marriage, the normalization of sexual deviancies, the murder of millions of unborn, um, and sometimes born, uh, children.
33:51: Um, these are horrible things, uh, that, that have taken place. The sexual desensitization of our culture is terrible.
33:59: Uh, the abandonment of fathers, uh, the fact that there's even some communities where they don't even have fathers hardly,
34:05: I mean, there's a lot of really terrible things happening right now and we're moving in the wrong direction on those things.
34:10: And so conservative can look at that and say, okay, there were some things we got right or better in the past. You know, the 1950s, that's the, you know, the era that the liberals want to beat up on.
34:19: There were the 1950s, there was more stability in the home. And right now that's what we're losing stability in the home.
34:25: That's kind of a core building block. That's kind of something really important. Yeah. There was other things in the 1950s that weren't the best, but that's pretty fundamental.
34:32: So it's not the rose colored glasses thing. I don't buy that. I've never met conservatives who are like that.
34:38: Um, but that's, that's what he's insinuating here. All right, let's keep going. Uh, oh, and by the way, just, this isn't evidence -based by the way.
34:45: I'm, I'm offering my opinion, but Phil Butcher's, it should be noted. He's offering his opinion here. This isn't, he doesn't have like a study he's citing.
34:51: He's a, this is just, this is what he thinks. Black Christians look in the rear view mirror. The view is very different.
34:57: They see fire hoses and church bombings and lynchings. They see Strom Thurmond saying, we will never let
35:04: Negroes into our theaters, swimming pools, homes, or churches. Okay. Do they know that Strom Thurmond got saved?
35:11: That he, um, rejected that view that he, uh, you know, renounced it.
35:17: And, um, I don't even remember what year. I think it, I want to say probably in the seventies he did that if I'm not mistaken.
35:22: But, um, or is it just that that clip has played over and over and over and over? And that, you know, they, they, Hey, this is
35:28: America. If they're getting a one -sided view, if they're only getting tunnel vision, then of course, you know, and, and it's not, that's not to, you know, sugarcoat anything.
35:37: It's not, there were some bad things that happened, but this is not, um, all there is to even the, the quote unquote black experience.
35:45: And I'm just going to take a moment to say this. Look, I've noticed every year that Black History Month gets celebrated. It becomes more and more about victimology.
35:52: I don't know why that is, but I see it in the kinds of, um, the murals that are put up, the media that's put out there.
35:59: Uh, I was, I grew up, some of my heroes were like George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington. I don't see anything about them anywhere.
36:06: Uh, during Black History Month. Why is that? Why, why have they been sidelined? And I'm sure there's others that I'm not thinking of who have probably been sidelined.
36:13: They don't fit the narrative. George Washington or Booker T. Washington doesn't fit the narrative. And, and so that's, that's my only way of trying to figure that out.
36:22: That's my only way to reconcile that. Um, it, it becomes more and more about oppression, uh, about those who kind of broke a barrier, who overcame some kind of oppression, which is fine, which is good.
36:35: I mean, we need to know those stories. I think, uh, it's important to have good role models who had good character, um, and you know, guys like Jackie Robertson and, um, and I, I, I'm sure
36:46: I'm blanking on a lot of others. But there's, there's great role models out there that you can, you can look at, um, and you can say,
36:53: Hey, there's someone who accomplished something, someone who, and if they broke through a barrier, like, Hey, look, you know, that's, that's something to commend, but we've, for some reason, it's all become about just oppression and, uh, how bad it's been.
37:08: And how even those who broke through the barriers or whatever, it's all about them breaking through the barrier. It's not even about their accomplishment as much anymore as it is the barrier.
37:16: That becomes what Black History Month is about. And I I've seen this. Um, it's, it's honestly,
37:23: I would hate that if we took, let's say my, my history, right, I just found out,
37:28: I looked at ancestry, I guess I got a lot more Scottish in me that I thought. So we took my history going back and look at all the
37:35: Puritans and how they were persecuted by the church of England. And, and, you know, they, they had to flee. And, uh, those who were indentured servants in my family came to this country and we look at, uh, those, uh, in Scotland who were persecuted by England and how bad it was, or we really want to go back far.
37:49: Let's look at what the Roman empire did, you know, to, to the, the people that, that I descended from or something, you know, and then like, make that, that's the only part of your story.
37:58: That's your history. That's who you are. Like, I would just be like, man, that's depressing. I really don't like who I am.
38:04: Like, man, that's all there is. I guess I could try to, I'm going to go and do better or something. I'm, I'm going to, um, you know, make sure that I don't have to live with those deprivations and barriers, but, uh, you know, it's, it's to define yourself by that, to the, by the barrier.
38:19: That would be extremely unhealthy for me. I know it would be, I know it'd be terrible. Um, and it could lead to victimhood.
38:25: I know in my own heart, it could do that. And, and so I, I'm, I'm concerned about, uh, the fact that that's the kind of thing that I see going out.
38:35: Uh, that that's the kind of thing that seems to define, you know, I mean, this is the kind of thing that people would make people not want to study history if that's all history is.
38:45: And there is oppression in history. You need to study it, but that's not the, that's not the full story. That's not all of it is my point. So, um, tunnel vision for whites, tunnel vision for blacks.
38:54: That's what Pilgrims are saying. They see white Christians applauding Strom Thurmond for saying that, and then reelecting him to the
39:01: Senate for five decades until he dies in office at 2003 at the age of a hundred.
39:06: So George Bush next to him, look at that. Is this beginning to make sense? There are other issues.
39:13: Conservative white Christians see sin mostly as an individual problem, wrongs committed by one person against another requiring only individual confession and repentance as the solution.
39:24: Black Christians also see sin as a systemic problem, sinful systems needing broader solutions and broader confession and repentance.
39:33: I wonder what the evidence for this is. Cause you know, you hear this all the time that, oh, systemic issues here and there, and that's more of a neo -Marxist idea that yes, there's, there's bad laws that get enacted and there's bad individuals that can have authority within a government or some kind of hierarchy true, but, um, the idea that, oh, you have a bunch of racist, you know, a bunch of, a system of racism without racists or something like that.
39:59: It's just, uh, you can't locate the law. It's just, that's just the system. Like, is it like it's
40:04: COVID -19 it's, you know, no symptoms, but you have the disease, um, that, you know, that's, did that arise from, is that an idea that's unique to black people that that's part of their tradition?
40:15: I don't think so. Cause this is like, this is the stuff. If you go look at, um, the, uh, talks that I gave, uh, recently on social justice, the conference,
40:25: I mean, I'm finding these ideas, white people are the ones that are actually coming up and if you will, systematizing the idea that there's systemic unjust injustice and it's the hegemony,
40:36: I mean, we're talking about Lukasz and we're going back to, you know, Gramsci, um, and carried on through Frankfurt school stuff.
40:44: I mean, you know, white people or Jewish people, um, this is not something that I, I find even, um, in studying like slave narratives and stuff.
40:54: I don't, I don't ever find this kind of thinking. I don't. So it's possible, uh, that certain groups, uh, my, maybe black folks in the
41:03: United States think this way, but it's not because the fact that they're black, I, I would be,
41:10: I'd like to see the evidence on this. All this up. It really doesn't help that we've only got two viable parties and that we've decided one is for people who want things to change and the other is for people who want things to stay the same.
41:24: I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point. The Bible calls us to hold onto what is good while also working toward what is best to conserve and progress.
41:37: Oh man. Okay. This is, so this is his reconciliation of conservatism and liberalism,
41:45: I guess, progressivism, and, but it's, it's an empty shell of a definition for progressivism.
41:50: And neither party lines up with that very well, but I hope at least now you understand how
41:56: Christians from different backgrounds can read the same Bible, pray to the same God, and come to very different conclusions about who's going to get.
42:05: So the point is, and I'm not going to play any more of it because I can't take it anymore. Um, the point is though, if Phil Vischer's, uh, video is that his audience is evangelical, if you're evangelical, if you're a
42:15: Christian, you can vote for Joe Biden. I mean, that's the effect it's having. Uh, it's, it's trying to show
42:20: Christians that it's fine. It's justified because look, black Christians, they justify their votes. And, uh, and their votes justify because of this whole history, this whole, um, you know, they look back and this is what they see and it's, it's, it's kind of perspectival to be honest with you.
42:34: They have this perspective, you have this perspective. So instead of going to the word of God, instead of going to biblical principles, first principles, trying to find out, okay, what's the right thing?
42:41: How do we adjudicate this? What, what would be, um, the, the, the right way to think about issues?
42:47: What's a good government philosophy according to a Christian. Uh, we're just going to sidestep that and go to, well, uh, what, what in the imagination of a certain group, what do they think about voting for a
43:00: Republican or Democrat and the imagination of another certain group, what do they think about voting Republican, Republican or Democrat?
43:06: Uh, it's not up to man's opinion. Um, it's fun to go back into the past. It's fun to try to trace things out and to figure out like, okay, um, why does this group behave in a certain way?
43:17: This cultural group, families are like that. Go into the little, you know, go into a church. You can find out what kid belongs to which family based on how they're acting often, because families are, they're have their own peculiarities and there's things like that, but, um, as Christians, as believers, which is how
43:33: Phil Vischer is trying to make this video. He's not making an appeal to Southerners. He's not making an appeal to my family. He's not making an appeal to white people.
43:40: He's not, he's making appeal to Christians as Christians. The, the, the thing that should be most important to us is, okay, what, um, what conforms most closely with, with biblical morality and principles for government?
43:51: What kinds of things we're going to make for a good government philosophy? Uh, look at the principles of scripture to do that.
43:56: We don't start with that. We just sidestep it. And, and so that kind of, it annoys me not just about Phil Vischer, but about David Platt and annoys me about, um,
44:05: John Piper, it's just, it's annoying me more and more because I'm just like, where did the biblical authority go? Uh, to, to try to adjudicate these things.
44:14: Are we just left to a cultural milieu? And of course, in this, in this culture, uh, if we're going to start comparing cultures and say, well, this culture thinks this way, this culture thinks this way, so it doesn't really, you know, you can just choose, well, what culture right now is the elevated culture that has moral superiority?
44:30: Well, of course it's minorities. The victims seem to, they know more. They have their standpoint epistemology.
44:35: That's what it teaches. They, they have a better vantage point, uh, uh, in understanding what the real moral issues at play are and, um, bringing their opinion to bear on that.
44:45: So I just don't think we're left up to opinion. I think we got a book. I think we can apply that book in 2020. I think an immigrant coming off the boat here whose family hasn't been here for the past 200 years can apply that.
44:56: And, uh, and, and, and you're not going to come down on the side of the socialist baby killer who thinks that every sexual deviancy is fine and wants eight year olds to be able to, uh, you know, make, choose their own gender.
45:09: You're just not going to come to that. So there you go. Um, yes, I did not spend as much time.
45:15: I didn't even go over the whole video, but, uh, I, I, I do know that some of you were curious about it.
45:21: So I did want to at least mention it, go over it. Uh, let's now talk to Kevin McGarry, the president of Every Black Life Matters.
45:31: And I am pleased to be joined right now, uh, with a special guest, Kevin McGarry. Kevin McGarry is from Every Black Life Matters, which is an organization that, uh, has been described to me as kind of a counter movement, uh, to the
45:46: Black Lives Matter movement. Welcome to the podcast conversations that matter podcast, Kevin. Thank you,
45:52: John. It's a pleasure to be here. Really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Well, I mean, I met you in Washington DC briefly, uh, right in front of the
46:00: Supreme court building, I was impressed with how you, um, dealt with someone there who was on the pro abortion side.
46:06: And, uh, you know, one of the things that has always bothered me about, about Black Lives Matter and I've expressed it on this program is that they don't seem to actually believe the slogan that they created, um, black lives in the womb.
46:20: Don't seem to matter. Black and black crime. Doesn't seem to matter. Black police officers when, when they died, they don't seem to matter.
46:27: Uh, it's only a certain kind of situation that matters to them. And so, um,
46:32: I was looking at your website. It seems like to you guys from your Christian understanding, uh, every life matters and every black life, uh, matters.
46:41: So, um, I want to hear from you. Is that kind of your concern with the, the, the larger black lives matter movement and then, um, what separates you from that organization?
46:50: Cause you guys are 180 degrees different in my mind. Yes, exactly. Right. So here is what we, what really precipitated our enthusiasm to get involved with, uh, this movement.
47:01: The reality is, is BLM specifically focuses in on, um, police brutality.
47:09: And that is a very, very narrow range of black life. Matter of fact, most black life is not impacted by police brutality.
47:18: It, it happens occasionally, but what we saw is that there's a a, uh, organizations that are really taking advantage or trying to come alongside help and support black life, the entire span of black life from the womb to natural death.
47:35: There's all kinds of systemic plight, uh, you know, policies and plight that happens within black life.
47:42: So we do think it's important that black life is distinguished because of the, some of the roadblocks we have in life.
47:51: Uh, the main one is the targeting of extermination of black life in the womb.
47:56: Uh, that is a phrase that Margaret Sanger herself, the founder of Planned Parenthood said that we don't want the word to get out that we want to fully exterminate, uh, uh,
48:08: Negro population. So because that, that particular plight is there, we need to have an organization that comes alongside of black families, black mothers, and encourage them, uh, that to, to not necessarily take up the extermination path, but to actually see that life come to fruition.
48:30: So, so that's, that's just one example. There's many examples. There's early childhood development where there's systems of plight set up.
48:39: So there's a system of dependence. Then there's of course, education. Uh, if they can keep a black, uh, from a level playing field, from the education point of view, then now, of course, you have a dependent population on government educational systems and that kind of thing.
48:55: So, you know, so the reality is, is that we are here because BLM is not really about black life.
49:05: They're generally about black lives matter. But again, with their narrow focus, we saw that there needed to be an organization that was really holistic in its approach to black life.
49:17: And that's why every black life matters is here. Well, this is a powerful argument in my mind, because oftentimes what
49:26: I hear conservatives say, and I've said it, and there's some truth to it. When you hear about systemic racism and policing and those kinds of things, oftentimes
49:34: I want to pull out the statistics and show, Hey, hold on. There isn't a systemic racism you're talking about. What are you talking about?
49:39: But what you're saying, and this is, um, an, an addendum that we should probably be considering is that, wait, hold on there.
49:46: There are actually disparities that exist in part, or, um, they, they are at least, uh, uh, helped and advanced by policies that are hurting, uh, families and minority populations and urban populations, uh, these kinds of things.
50:04: Exactly. Exactly. And, um, and one of the things that you touched on, and I was hoping maybe you could expand on this is the government kind of almost acting like the dad, um, and, and, and creating a system of dependency.
50:17: Do you see fatherlessness as perhaps the major or one of the major situations confronting, uh, urban areas, uh, impoverished areas?
50:27: Yes, exactly. Right. So, uh, there are two primary disproportional forces that impact black life, one is fatherlessness and the other is education.
50:39: Uh, we can reduce criminality and poverty by approximately 70%.
50:46: That's huge. Wow. Uh, if we just take a stand to encourage fathers to remain connected with their children, they may not be able to live in the same place as their children.
50:56: We understand that that, you know, sometimes personalities between the mother and father just doesn't allow that to happen, but if they're just connected with their children, that has a huge impact on the child's life.
51:08: The other thing is educational choice programs. We need parents to be able to make choices for their children.
51:16: They know the learning style of their children. They know, uh, you know, what, what their children, the core competencies of their children are.
51:24: Charter schools, uh, parochial schools, schools that offer different learning techniques.
51:30: Maybe some children need a little bit more, uh, one -on -one, uh, you know, really close mentorship from a teacher.
51:36: Those are the types of things that make a tremendous difference in, in how much, uh, black children can learn, how much they can attain, and then ultimately achieve successfully with their educational pursuits.
51:50: So these are the types of things that make a huge difference. And we hear on, um, many people talk all the time about why is the black community so impoverished?
52:00: Why is the black community always kind of needing the hand up? There are real systemic plight, uh, policies that have been put in place.
52:10: Mostly leftist policies, actually, ironically, that have a disproportional negative effect on black life.
52:20: And they're put there because of this whole dependency cycle. Think about it. If you have somebody that's wholly dependent on you for their sustenance, for their achievement, whatever, they're just dependent on you.
52:32: You can always guarantee that you can make a request and they're going to comply because they're dependent on you.
52:40: So when we get to these voting cycles, the reason why we need a 90 plus percent black vote in, and why they're pretty much, they don't even care.
52:49: I mean, in between the times of voting season, every two and four years, there's no real consideration of the black community.
52:56: It's only at voting time where they demand, you need to vote for us because we're the ones that are filling the blanks.
53:03: The reality is, is those are the ones who are putting up these, these, these, these pillars of plight that negatively impact our community, yet they're the ones that are demanding that we vote their way every two and four years.
53:18: Well, that, that sounds like it rings true. And it sounds like what you're saying is one of the things that can, can break this cycle and actually return a sense of responsibility and dignity and these kinds of things that are needed would be to restore the family.
53:39: I want to get practical with you. I've had this thought before, you know, down, down the street from me where I haven't lived in the place
53:48: I'm living for long, but recently I've noticed some nights there's an area where there's some, some urban people, they're not all black.
53:54: Some of them are though, and they play basketball outside. And I've often thought, you know, usually
53:59: I'm too busy. I'm on my way somewhere, but I thought, man, I should stop there. I should stop there and just try to, even, even though I'm probably terrible compared to them, try to play some basketball or, you know, get to know them in some way in order to form a relationship and, and some of the younger, you know, the kids and stuff
54:18: I'm sure they're looking for father figures. And I've I've had some, a little bit of experience with just being
54:25: I used to be a repairman being in people's houses where you know, kids don't have a father and they're looking up to me and wanting to know what kind of tools
54:33: I have and what I'm doing. And my heart just, just yearns for that. Can you give some practical advice to people that might have that same yearning?
54:41: How would, how would you go about maybe getting involved with someone who who could use maybe a father figure or an older brother kind of figure?
54:49: And then does your organization help promote or inspire that? Yes, that's great.
54:56: We do want to get practical. There's a lot of organizations that talk about the issue of fatherlessness, but, you know, in reality, there's few that are actually doing the work practically.
55:07: And we want to go beyond that. Now, every Black Lives Matters has just been around for the past 60 days because we, we saw that there was a need, we stepped up and so now we're here.
55:19: So our fatherlessness programs right now more has to do with policy around how do we encourage educating young men as to how important it is to remain connected to your children.
55:34: So the first thing that we have to do is that we have to help these young men who are fathers or who are, you know, fathering children to know what the downside is if you disconnect from your children.
55:50: And we have to also on the other side, help the mothers understand that you may have an issue with this guy who you, who got you pregnant and you had the child.
56:00: But the reality is, is if you keep him out of that child's life, you are considerably, you know, five, 10
56:08: X negatively impacting the outcomes of the child. So it's not healthy to be that way.
56:14: So there's education on both sides. What we would like to do is to partner with organizations.
56:20: The Woodson Institute does some great work with the fatherhood initiative. So that would be a Rob Woodson's organization.
56:26: The Douglas Leadership Institute has an entire fatherless track that they do.
56:32: And that's an organization that I'm an executive on. And Douglas Leadership is, you know, actually leading off the legacy of Frederick Douglass, the
56:42: Honorable Frederick Douglass. So there are some organizations that we will be partnering with to actually help promote a community awareness around fatherhood and, and help them to understand what the downside of not being around.
56:58: I encourage everybody who has an opportunity, open door and hopefully a safe open door as a repairman.
57:06: I don't think that you would just necessarily start volunteering yourself for mentorship for kids that you have run into, but if you have a relationship with a family and especially a black family, and you see that there is not a fatherhood figure around and a consistent one, then it is a great idea to come alongside of that mother and say, look, you know,
57:27: I see that, you know, you really don't have a father figure. I'd love to start taking, you know, you know, your son out and just shoot some hoops or, you know, play some pool or whatever it is to help mentor and guide that child that actually helps.
57:45: While it's not ideal, it is a step in the right direction because that helps them, that child to kind of reinforce where you're at with those children who are in that situation, reinforce the importance of education.
57:58: Those are a lot of times, those are messages that they're not getting because they have a very busy mother and she may have multiple children that she's trying to take care of and that specific messaging about how important education is and how that sets you up for the rest of your life may not be delivered consistently.
58:18: And so having another figure in that can reinforce that type of positive messaging goes a long way.
58:24: And what we're finding is that as children are plugged into school, then they're less likely to be plugged into crime.
58:31: So there is a direct proportional impact of schooling and education and criminality both ways.
58:39: So obviously, if you drop out, then you're much more susceptible to criminality. If you plug in, you're a lot less susceptible.
58:48: So it's a two way thing. Yeah, I want to ask you, that was excellent. I want to ask you a question that I know my audience is probably, most of them will be curious about.
58:57: Now, you're a Christian. I think the organization is a Christian organization, right?
59:03: Would that be my... So we're a 501C3 non -profit, non -political and non -religious.
59:12: But me and my co -founder are Christians. Yes, we're Christian ministers and leaders and that.
59:19: But the organization itself, we think that this is so needed that it crosses all religious boundaries.
59:27: We're not a real Christian organization. Well, let me ask you a question. You just happen to be Christian. OK, this will be a personal question then.
59:32: And you can answer it however you want or choose to sidestep it if you want. But as a
59:38: Christian, as a believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ, how does that factor into the way that you approach the topics that your organization is concerned with?
59:49: Because I know you've spoken at churches and you've talked about biblical racial reconciliation, what that is, as opposed to the critical race theory stuff.
59:58: How does the gospel motivate you? So the gospel really has all of the answers that we need as Christians to get beyond this cycle of racism, systemic racism, white fragility and all of this stuff.
01:00:12: If we just read the Bible, we would have clear directives as to how to help those that are hurting, legitimately hurting because of what they've seen on TV, especially with George Floyd.
01:00:26: Come alongside them and give them guidance and help and help them move beyond the hurt and the pain of that incident, because the
01:00:36: Bible tells us that, you know, about the Bible teaches us about forgiveness. The Bible teaches us about vengeance being mine, sayeth the
01:00:45: Lord. So you have a lot of people that say, no, we want to take it out on the community. We want to tear stuff up because they don't listen to us.
01:00:52: We want to start hitting people across the head with skateboards. We want to do all of this damage to communities.
01:00:58: And this is not biblical. And then we have people within the church that say, well, yeah, it's
01:01:07: OK for us to demand that whites wash our feet and do this thing as a part of our reconciliation methodologies.
01:01:15: But in reality, the Bible actually helps us to understand that reconciliation is not some practice that you can just sort of, you know, encourage and do.
01:01:30: It is all found in Christ. If we remember Ephesians 2 .15 or 2 .14
01:01:36: to 2 .22, everything, all of our reconciliation, all the walls have been torn down between races, between heaven and earth, between everything.
01:01:49: And we're fully reconciled with Christ. So the fundamental strategy for reconciliation is not so much that we have to do racial reconciliation.
01:02:00: Now, if we're doing it in the world, that's different. But if we're doing it in the body, the issue is we need to remind one another that we're already reconciled in Christ.
01:02:10: Did you accept Christ, brother? Yes, so did I. So while there's all this kind of crazy stuff going on in the secular world, let's you and I agree as we're reconciled through Christ Jesus as one body.
01:02:25: And that's already been done now. But but to be sensitive to others,
01:02:31: I think we do need to be sensitive that there's people out there that are legitimately hurting. But if they are
01:02:38: Christians, we have the mode and methodology to bring them into relationship and keep them connected to the body.
01:02:45: And that's through Ephesians 2, 14 to 22. Yeah, I totally agree. It's sad to me when
01:02:52: I see churches trying to import the division in the world into their church and mocking people with pejoratives like, well, you just believe in colorblind theology or something like that.
01:03:02: When I mean, that's what I see in the Apostle Paul, like you just mentioned. We are one in Christ. There's there's one race.
01:03:08: And I know you on the website, it says that. I can see the Christian worldview very much coming out through the tenants of the organization.
01:03:18: What sort of switching gears a little bit here. And this is obviously right before a major election in this country.
01:03:27: And it's not just for the agency. It's for all kinds of offices at different levels.
01:03:34: I would see your organization, some of the tenants, I know you guys believe in the free market. You seem to align more probably with the
01:03:40: Republican Party or conservative values, those kinds of things. Are you are you voting for President Trump?
01:03:46: I know that's a personal. Absolutely. Absolutely. Unequivocally. But here's the reason why. Yeah. Make a decision why.
01:03:52: Some people say, well, Kev, you're a Republican. And I tell them that I know I'm first a man of God.
01:03:59: I'm committed to the word of God. Every letter and tittle. That's it. That's me. So I'm not committed to a party per se.
01:04:06: But I am committed to the fundamental tenets of God and his character. And if people don't understand, well, how do you get that?
01:04:14: You know, we're always voting this way and not voting that way. For me, it's it's relatively easy.
01:04:21: If we look at Genesis where God reveals himself to the world. Genesis one,
01:04:27: God says, I created the heavens and the earth. God also says
01:04:32: I created man and then woman. God also says I created the family.
01:04:38: I created marriage and family unified as a family unit. Then he also creates children.
01:04:46: And it's just be fruitful and multiply. Then in other, you know, Jeremiah and Psalms and other places, he says every
01:04:54: I've counted the hairs on your head when I intrinsically rove you together in the womb.
01:05:00: There's all kinds of scriptures like that. So what I vote for are the fundamental character and tenets of God.
01:05:07: So I look at which party upholds that. If I don't know which one to vote for,
01:05:13: OK, which one says that the heavens and the earth God created and that we should be good stewards over it?
01:05:20: But it's a real fallacy to think that we can actually change the entire environment, the structure of the world just by doing this or that.
01:05:27: Which one says that there are male and female? What one particular party says, we're biological entities, male and female.
01:05:36: And the other says we have over 140 different entities.
01:05:42: They're not biological, but they're they're acceptable. Then you have the one party that says, look, we honor and respect
01:05:49: God's authority when it comes to life. He intricately weaves those lives together in the womb.
01:05:55: And it's important that we uphold and honor that his handiwork. There's another party says, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:06:01: We don't have to. That's all just a woman's choice. As a matter of fact, that baby can come to here on the earth and be actually born.
01:06:10: And then we can decide that. Yeah, let's just kill it. And, you know, the baby could actually be delivered and we kill it.
01:06:17: Real infanticide. So if you look at the fundamental tenets of God and let
01:06:22: God's word be your guide, there should be no, you know, no real
01:06:28: Christian person that's really trying to live God's will. God's way should not be confused about who to vote for this election.
01:06:38: There's there's one fundamental party and system that upholds one path or another.
01:06:47: And they're really divergent. They're not even close when it comes to these fundamental issues. So so I vote that way.
01:06:54: That's it. I mean, it's not about. And then what I do, because some people say, well, I can't understand how you vote for this one or that one.
01:07:03: And I say, well, you know, quite honestly, I take myself out of the equation. And then I have some pastor friends like, what are you talking about?
01:07:09: How do you take yourself out of the equation? And I say, well, I believe in worship. When I became a
01:07:15: Christian, I committed my life to Jesus. And he is my savior and the
01:07:20: Lord, which means that the vote is I don't even have to be. It's not mine. It's not my vote.
01:07:27: Literally under lordship, it's his vote. So I say, OK, which one conforms to the word?
01:07:33: I pray about it. And I say, Lord Jesus, give me wisdom about how you want to vote, because this is your vote.
01:07:40: So I don't have a dog in the race, per se. I'm just a vessel and a tool. And we all are to be used for God's glory, even when we vote.
01:07:49: That's what lordship is. Now, a lot of us have forgotten lordship. We understand the salvation part, but we still do our own thing.
01:07:57: No, man, this vote is mine. I'm going to vote for this person, that person, because I don't like the personality over here. I don't like what that party.
01:08:04: Are you really? Have you prayed about this? Have you taken it to the Lord and said, look, I want your your wisdom on this?
01:08:11: No, they haven't. They're making their own decision. And so we have to remind people about these these very valuable understanding and tenets about how to go about in a season like this.
01:08:25: We hear a lot of barking on both sides, but we as Christians have been given our road map. What we have to do is read the word of God and truly commit to living there, living by it.
01:08:36: And that is the I think, you know, what's missing, right? OK, why there's so much confusion with CRT and white fragility and all this other stuff that's being thrown into the mix.
01:08:45: Yeah, well, I'm the Biden campaign and the Democrat Party are certainly trying to take advantage of all of that to the best of their ability.
01:08:53: And it's confusing a lot of Christians right now. So I appreciate your voice of clarity on this. If people want to get involved with your organization, give to your organization, every black life matters.
01:09:04: Where can they go? How can they get involved? Yeah, I would encourage everybody to come alongside of our incredible organization and ministry and that you can find us at www .EveryBLM
01:09:19: .org EveryBLM .org and you can come alongside of us to help and support us.
01:09:27: We have a really fantastic store. There's items you can buy, shirts, mugs, all kinds of wonderful things that we can use together to change the narrative about BLM and what's happening in the world.
01:09:41: This is a narrative that is much more specific to black life. The other narratives out there are generally black lives matter.
01:09:50: But we say if in order for you to agree that black lives matter, you must agree that every single black life matters.
01:09:59: And so we're taking it a level deeper and more granular. And we're doing the work that the practical work at the community level to make a real big difference in black life.
01:10:10: So please come alongside of our incredible work. Well, Kevin McGarry, thank you so much for being my guest on the
01:10:17: Conversations That Matter podcast. Everyone go to the website. Check it out. See if you can get involved and support the organization.
01:10:25: And we'll be praying for for your organization and for the upcoming election, because I know that's going to have a great impact on all of us.
01:10:34: So on all of us, this is this is vital. Too many Christians do not vote. Fifty four million approximately did not vote last time.
01:10:41: We need to all we want to see a rapid remedy on election night.
01:10:48: We all need to vote. We can overwhelm even the ballot harvesting and whatever else. If we all just do our part.
01:10:54: God is calling us forward and requiring that we do our part. So let's do it together. All right.