Cultish: Vladimir Putin & The Russian Orthodox Church

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Ladies and gentlemen to cultist where we are talking about the nature of the russian ukrainian conflict the cultish nature of Misinformation media manipulation i'm very excited for part two of this conversation as always i'm joined with andrew the super sleuth of the show

We are also joined by paul who is coming to us from ohio And then also jacoby and you are what time is it there now in ukraine?

It's 3 29. Uh pm And what time is it there right now? 1 29 am the next day

Okay Yeah, so help us understand i'm very fascinated by this So give us your thoughts when

I so when I think of vladimir putin i've jokingly said i'm surprised he hasn't been casted As a bond villain in any of the recent daniel craig films.

I mean, he just seems he has the ideal part I mean, he's this guy who's this former kgb agent

There's videos of him where he's doing pr stuff where he's on a horse He's like riding a horse totally shirtless and jacks jacked

I'm sure no peds were involved in the uh involvement in the production of that, uh picture, you know, you have uh,

You know picture of him doing judo. There's picture of him like hunting white tigers and you know, he's almost as cold a personality um, how would you

Like when you first how how do you how would you even begin to describe like who vladimir putin is?

He is a a man Who as you mentioned he was a kgb agent in the soviet union and he is from a generation of russians that uh came to prominence

In the chaos that unfolded after the fall of the soviet union and he is a particular kind of personality that uh is able to thrive in chaos

In a way in which he's able to build a political structure amongst all the craziness that's happening

And it's a political structure in which the most evil people rise to the top so a very evil man very manipulative

Believes he's above the law. This is interesting his uh Ex -wife wrote a book about you know, their marriage back when they were kgb agents and she talked about you know

They weren't supposed to but they just kind of up and uh left germany and went to turkey or whatever on vacation

No, no, no real uh regard for the law so super corrupt um doesn't hold to honest democracy, uh he and uh

Medvedev kind of switched back and forth between two offices. So he's Managed to get in control of russia and stay in control uh, so the ultimate thug uh

Not a good guy one thing that is concerning is that uh He has cancer.

Uh, there was a rumor that went around a couple months ago that he fell down and soiled himself Which is a sign that the cancer has uh gotten

To be rather advanced the degree to which we can trust these rumors is uh questionable but if that's the case that he could be on his deathbed right now and uh he's

At a particular point in the maslow's hierarchy of needs where you just sort of live for self -actualization

He's like the extreme of that so he's very evil. He's got access to a lot of weapons and stuff and uh, he sort of strikes me as just being a man who's able to play and do what he wants so uh with no real

Regard for the lives of his fellow russians. He's he's carrying a lot of wicked acts The concerning thing about him perhaps dying soon from cancer or a bullet or whatever

The case may be is that as a man who was able to build a structure in chaos uh

That takes a particular personality type But the person who can rise to the top in that system could very well be worse than the architect of the system itself, so Whoever it is that putin has lined up Come next could be even worse than he is

So that's the concern. Yeah, so short answer putin is a bad guy, right? yeah, so in other words, it's it's uh

Will you you'd be concerned about then? It's just really his um his The vacuum that might be filled in his absence because I was listening to a podcast

I think it was uh somebody on the lex freeman podcast that was being interviewed and he is basically saying that putin has already

Lived the full life of the average russian male, which I think is 69 years old. How old is he right now? Oh, he's older and dirt

He's in his 80s Yeah, he's he's up he's up there he was in the berlin wall fell when he was early 20s

He's only 70 Coming up on 71 right Yeah, and so let me ask you this in regards to religiosity.

So we had never really talked about ethan orthodoxy before explain Uh, go ahead explain what that is in conjunction to historical like protestantism.

Um, and also how does Pew, how does that how does that fit into putin in regards to this whole conflict?

This is the theological part that you sort of provably mentioned part one. So you just asked for uh, 2 000 years of church history

Yeah, just very clear so There's a lot of similarities with uh, eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism from the the protestant perspective.

Um They uh both claim to Have their origins and preservation from the the early church the split between eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism was an east -west split so Catholicism was the roman church orthodoxy was the greek church okay, so about 900s a couple of missionaries go to ukraine from greece and Start developing a an eastern orthodoxy in ukraine

Then with time ukraine gets baptized Uh, which means it became eastern orthodox

Which is interesting whenever we read the bible the conversion to christianity is always an individual matter. Have you believed in christ you yourself?

Eastern orthodoxy sees it as a national matter So greece was eastern orthodox then ukraine became eastern orthodox

Before it was called ukraine. It was called uh, kiev rus Then uh ukrainian orthodoxy had a church plant to go seriously wrong that church plant was the russian orthodox church so Russian orthodoxy is tied into this whole eastern orthodox thing

One difference between eastern orthodoxy and roman catholicism is that roman catholicism has a pope Uh eastern orthodoxy doesn't have one head over the entire eastern orthodox world

They have a synod. So there's the russian orthodox church. There's the greek orthodox church. There's the american orthodox church um and in uh 2016

There was an official schism between the russian orthodox and the ukrainian orthodox churches uh due to the uh, the war that had been waging for a couple of years, so if lord terry's that's one that's going to Be in the church history textbooks for centuries to come

Um at any rate that's kind of the historical basis of it, uh theologically speaking

They are um a lot more mystical than we would be in the the protestant tradition Uh, they're even more mystical than a lot of roman catholics are if that's possible to imagine

Eastern orthodoxy has sort of got a bit of a popularity in the united states among millennials about a decade or so ago because of the mysticism and the uh

The novelty of it, you know, if you've never been in a russian orthodox church or an eastern orthodox church in general

Uh, first thing whenever you walk in you'll be amazed by the Smell, just the frankincense.

Oh, yeah in the air and then they've got these uh

Icons all over the walls whenever they sing it echoes. No pews. They all stand up the whole time So they're known for this, uh, very mystical.

Uh It's said that they pray the best which I really doubt because if you're praying to angels or to dead saints

Then you're not praying to god and you need to get your prayer life adjusted They have priests whom you are to confess to which is uh wedging a man between the

Christian and christ that is not acceptable

Their soteriology is a really goofy wacky thing They uh, they would say god became man so man could become god through a system of uh, theosis uh, we could become more and more and more of like a god in order to restore the uh, the image of god

Which was tarnished at the fall Become partakers of the divine nature another term that you'll hear

So it's a very works -based salvation Uh It's a very man -based religion

They put man in place of god They de -emphasize the bible and instead hold uh

Uh patristic writings and traditions to a higher uh higher degree of authority. Yeah Well, there's also like this very like patriarchal like masculine aesthetic to it

I mean just recently in the news that there was a startup you knew about it There's I think there was a hockey player

Who was there was going to be a like a pride night or something like that and he absolutely refused

I don't know if you knew about this, but he just stood on his grounds of being, you know Orthodox christian and then

I went to go find out later. He was etherealist orthodox But I mean people people just love the fact that he pushed back and everyone like on nhl .com

I think every his jersey completely sold out out of like all online vendors because people all of a sudden they found this representative

But there is yeah, so there is the kind of like this assault on uh marriage And yeah, he's standing up for a divine institution, right?

If he's not a believer in christ, right? But um, yeah, there is sort of like this very a lot of people

I think there is an appeal sort of there's a very masculine aesthetic and structure to it and I don't know if maybe would that sort of play into Like why putin would sort of like utilize that to try and say hey

This is a righteous cause to have the men go and be part of this sort of from putin's perspective

Is it kind of like a holy war is utilizing these sort of orthodox church or how how do? How are these two things like fitting together in this whole conflict?

The uh, the eastern orthodox church of all branches of christianity the eastern orthodox have the best beards

I mean a russian orthodox priest has a beard that will just I mean, it's it's great man.

Yeah, i've seen they're pretty gnarly They've got some beards. They really do But uh,

I wouldn't necessarily say it's all that masculine of a religion because of its mysticism and it's feely goody uh, the uh, the devotion to mary the putting out mary icons everywhere

I had an eastern orthodox friend who told me that that was Uh helping him get in touch with his feminine side, which is uh, which is interesting

The Thing with the uh with putin and eastern orthodoxy is probably more related to tradition so I mentioned earlier that the eastern orthodox world has a way of getting tied up into the government, right?

So the uh Holy byzantine empire the holy russian empire that the tsars of old

Were very much wrapped up in liturgy whenever a new tsar would be appointed. It was a big liturgical process akin to what we saw recently with king charles and the church of england so putin is trying to uh if you will uh establish sort of a new version of the uh,

The the holy russian empire if you will Which tries to unite? uh people on Racial grounds as well as religious ground

Once uh the the expressed purposes up front are that they want all slavs

To be russian orthodox under the russian patriarchy or at least eastern orthodox However, some problems immediately come out of this one problem is that a lot of russians

From the russian federation are actually not slavic and not eastern orthodox, but rather they're asiatic and is

Muslim, right? So the republic of dagestan, for example Has a lot of uh, asiatics you wouldn't

Look at them and say this guy's a slav But they're under the russian empire. They're not eastern orthodox, but they are muslim so A move that we're seeing putin do you can watch his speech that he did.

Oh February of this year And he's doing a state of the union address and he's got everybody out there and he's you know

You're doing the whole thing reading the paper and the cameraman are pointing to different guys and He starts talking about the holy books and the camera points to to The uh russian orthodox patriarch and some head imam muslim that are sitting next to each other and so putin is phrasing is uh

Framing the the conflict in ukraine as an attack against the holy books And then they they kind of they're reframing this to where it's this abrahamic eastern orthodox muslim together kind of thing which is

Contradictory in several senses, but they're trying to make it work so That's kind of a thing that's going on The the russian orthodox patriarch patriarch kirill has said that anyone who dies

Uh in this war fighting for russia has washed away his own sins regardless of whether or not he is a eastern orthodox or an atheist or a muslim so there's

Currently a theological pole toward unity between eastern orthodoxy and islam As far as i'm concerned, they're both false religions that need to be responded to but the fact that they're making that particular

Connection should be a giant red flag to anyone on the ground that russian orthodoxy is is indeed a false religion because it's joining with Uh islam which proclaims a different god in the most explicit ways possible

Andrew, what what questions do you have for paul? Uh, what's on your mind? uh in terms of the the theology of putin

Uh, is he someone who claims to believe in god or is he just uh using the russian orthodox church as like a figurehead?

And does he does he say? Uh through russian propaganda that the war going on in ukraine and with the western world is a war against uh

What is it? Uh Critical race theory and things of that nature

Is like that what's attacking? Uh, the russian orthodox and uh, the holy books.

Is it critical race theory? Is it wokeness? Is it those types of things like what what exactly is are they saying?

It is and uh This is where it starts to get uh interesting on the ukrainian front, right?

so Uh, of course putin is as a former kgb agent presumably He was at least an atheist at that point in his life and I see no reason to think that he has um become a monotheist since uh, especially since uh uh, presumably he is uh

Influencing the russian orthodox church to decide who gets to become the uh, the the patriarch who's saying these things, right?

so uh uh to call him eastern orthodox in the sense of the word that uh

The the true eastern orthodox outside of russia The greek orthodox or the american orthodox who who actually knows the doctrines and has studied the doctrines and is dedicated to the doctrines

As much as I disagree with them Uh to say that putin is the kind of eastern orthodox that those guys would agree with would be uh would be hard to imagine um

However, they are indeed, uh framing this as a holy war There was an interesting, uh

A propaganda video that went out There was a big uh rally in uh downtown moscow and one of the speakers started shouting out

This is a holy war holy war and when he did from the cameras in the back, you know You could see that the crowd and everything and you could hear them erupting in applause

Wow And then a video was released of a guy in the the audience that had his phone out

And whenever the same line came out It was silent nobody was

Hollering That goes back to the french. So there's a there's a question then uh, to what extent uh, is it?

Yeah, right um So it seems that that was being manipulated. Well, one of them was it was it the the

The phone or was it the the mainstream there? So there's kind of a question as to whether or not the russian populace is

With putin and to what extent? So there's kind of a question then of um of the russian populace uh, how many of them are sincere russian orthodox, uh

People who follow that religion and how many are not Then of those who are sincerely russian orthodox how many of them are buying into this and it's hard to tell

I've been trying to to gauge that i'm seeing a lot of support a lot of really hateful things coming out of the average joe in russia, but I don't want to try to pretend like I have a good feel for the

The populace when I have several examples So that that's kind of tough um

So is uh Putin russian orthodox

Kind of hard to tell how do you define it? So what exactly is the nature of this holy war then is it critical race theory and critical theory and wokeism in short?

I think the answer to that question is a yes They they've said it in very uh, very clear terms.

Uh, uh Putin has gotten up and you know said look at what they're doing in the west, you know, they're uh, promoting the the the lgbtq, uh plus agenda this

This is what they're trying to promote That the scary thing is a video that I've recently seen released in ukraine in support of the war and it had snippets of a gay pride parade and then snippets of A nazi black and white footage from back in the 40s and then gay parade nazis gay parade nazis.

Yeah And i'm looking at i'm like I kind of like that They're drawing a comparison between the gay parade and the nazis because they have the same basis but then they put a sort of a line there in ukrainian saying something to the effect of Just as we are fighting against the nazis

We're going to fight against the homophobes too in support of uh, the whole gay awareness month and everything

So russia is framing this as a war against the the western ideology And it looks like a lot of ukrainians are buying into the western ideology because of it

And this is something that we on the the missions front are going to have to be dealing with in a very serious way

In years to come. Yeah Help me understand real quick just because when I think of like critical race theory

And the influence of marxism in our country I see that is almost like to russia a good thing that that's happening to the west because it will eventually destroy like a free market society

It'll destroy the very foundation which our government exists on why would they be fighting against that instead of encouraging the destruction of the west?

Through uh, just letting them have have it like what if this is the way communism is going to take the west

Why is another form of communism fighting against it? Like because I don't see russia not fighting with china and they have two different forms of communism, you know so the uh

Back up a little bit a mistake that you'll often hear said is that this is a conflict between The russian military or the russian government and the ukrainian military or the ukrainian government.

It's not quite like that. This is uh, Several people in the russian government have actually come out and said

Uh things like no mercy to the ukrainian people So it's actually an attack against the ukrainian people the nation right it's an actual genocide and there are several definitions of genocide

Which russia is fulfilling here and because of the uh Question of how infiltrated it is into society.

It is very reasonable to say that it is russian society against ukrainian society, right? Not just the top wigs.

Okay, so it's the russian people against the ukrainian people one step further It is not only against the ukrainian people but it is against western people as well uh

They see the west supporting Ukraine, uh, they're framing ukraine as nazis, which is which is absurd.

I mean, uh, so let's see as a jew No But they're framing this as a war against the uh western liberalism in favor of Russian conservatism

Do I need to go soon? Okay How much are you picking me out yet?

Okay. I don't know. They haven't told me I have to go yet That's a good thing go for uh, go for uh, what do you call it?

Uh forgiveness versus permission Yeah, this is good stuff dude keep going so sure

So they are indeed framing this as a war against the uh against the west But the ideology of it is a little bit more complex they're not just trying to collapse the west

What they're trying to do is draw a clear border between the between europe and a new russian empire

This is where the idea of a multipolar world comes from. Yeah that That russia should be independent of Um of europe that the balkans the baltics should be under russia europe should be its own thing

The united states should be its own thing So it's offensive to them that america is using its hegemony and influencing what's happening around the world however, they themselves are forcing their will around the world, so it's

It's a bunch of uh hypocrisy on that front Does that kind of make sense? Yeah Hey, what's up everyone we love that you are enjoying our content on a weekly basis

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and check out all the awesome merch back to the show I I think what's also interesting too when you just sort of tie in like where houses fit into even like media media manipulation

There was a video that I saw seared on a couple different conservative outlets. I think one of them is called dc.

Drano and It's very conservative leaning pro -trump conservative and he was posting these videos of I guess ukrainian police in an eastern orthodox church

Like arresting or like shutting down a church service So the perception, you know what they're trying to depict is like, oh you're seeing these parched clips

Well, that means that zelensky is now, you know a fascist He's a dictator and he's trying to shut down all free speech and freedom of religion in ukraine

Right, I can see how there's an there's sort of you see someone inside it You see and especially with kov, especially through the lens of kovid when you see, you know

Police people inside of a church like health officials. We all I think we all have that prejudice in that mind

So me even for me, I see that I kind of knee -jerk react to it It seems to me that with everything you said there's a very nuanced sort of Context to where even you would see something like that taking place.

You know what i'm referring to right that video. Yeah Help people understand the context of that Well, we might show that i'll share that on our social media as well, too

When we drop this episode, but help bring people and help people understand that So two things to keep in mind um, first of all whenever your country's at war the government is justified

In taking measures that would not be justified, uh when you're not in a state of war, okay uh in world war ii america rationed food

So that they could feed the soldiers And do you have to go if biden was to come out and say we need to start rationing food today?

They gave me five minutes. So hey, let me ask you this real quick. Would you have it? Are you on a smartphone?

Uh, I am if you can you like how much bet juice do you have if you leave here? Can you reconnect via like the zoom app?

I can just take my Laptop out into the front. Uh porch. Let's do that.

Yeah, let's do that real quick Let's do that real quick. And while you're doing that jacoby talk. Yeah in that While you're relocating and jacoby remember we talked about this um

We talked about this when we were talking I think I want I think we did Just about that video or just sort of like the nature of the that The context of like ukrainian soldiers inside of you know that eastern orthodox church and the perception

That's someone like myself You know Like i'm i'm susceptible a lot of a lot of people where you saw people were knee -jerk reacting

I also saw people in knee -jerk reacting to a post like that Yeah, it's help. Maybe while while he's relocate while paul's relocating

Give it give us your thoughts on that or even some of the stuff that paul said as far as understanding The the complex nuance of the religious fervor both in russia and ukraine, you know in relation to eastern orthodoxy um

Okay, well I don't know if I would address it so much in the context of religious fervor

Although among certain individuals you will find fervor uh amongst any denomination or group um

I would more say that Like paul was describing the general eastern orthodox different groups of believers

With each having its own patriarch for a different country, you know, russia ukraine greece romania

Uh, so on and so forth He always had a few factions that would have

Disagree with some ecumenical belief like the coptic church So they were considered heretical by the general group of eastern orthodox

And then you had I think it was the oriental orthodox. They had a couple different views that were different But the russian orthodox church they have it's basically a veneer.

There's a lot of evidence I mean I I Interviewed several people and I heard it over and over again kareel is kgb

And this is like open information so You know you you hear it and you kind of question it because it's kind of like a hangover from the soviet union

You know, like I think a lot of people heard that during the soviet era. The church was ran by kgb agents but the fact is that The patriarch of the russian orthodox church is still kgb

Now I would personally venture to say there's probably Sincere individuals in the church that god by his grace have saved despite Whatever the false teachings in the church are but by and large the like the russian symbol is a two -headed eagle, which is the state in the church and this is

It's basically another arm of the state That's what it is.

And and it's They just say like like paul was pointing out how they say if you die in this war against ukraine

You will go to heaven. That's just bizarre. There's no scriptural support for that You're atoning for your own sins by going to fight in the war against ukraine or Or you know, they they they think that the western society is the antichrist or I don't well,

I don't know if they would say the western society is the antichrist But basically the faithful church in russia is the restrainer against the antichrist is what they preach

So, you know, they just come up with whatever they can say and most of the people that they're preaching to are village people

Who hear only russian state media? And they have one church to choose from which is the russian orthodox church

They are literally brainwashed. These are simple uneducated people that live in villages

I'm, not saying they're bad people even even if they hate ukrainians,

I I would give them I would think extend mercy to them because They have just you know, they're just simple brainwashed people with no education stuck in a poor village in russia, so That's what that's how

I view the russian orthodox church. This is it's basically a brainwashing machine Oh, no, it's interesting man.

And it's it's also interesting and all angelic to jump in here a second and I just maybe I resonate with this not so much that I and again my

Knowledge is so it's probably very is obviously very different for your vantage point, but I I Reflect back to you know when

I was a bit younger during the early 2000s and you think of like 9 11 And the war on terror and sort of a lot of people who even who are christians in the middle east even missionaries in the middle

East there was sort of a conflict because you sort of felt this sort of national American nationalism where it was hey

You need to you know fight the terrorists abroad and you'd associate any sort of muslim, you know with the terrorism at that time you know associated with the 9 11 attacks and You know, it was very

I remember like going over to a middle eastern country and my prejudices Just from being a very pro.

Oh, you're back outside the library You there? Oh, you're on the mic a live live reporting from outside Andrew, it's downtown.

Winniwood, oklahoma This is great andrew, it's like you with uh, you're like weatherman andrew except uh, except andrew

He has a actual microphone versus whatever prop that you have That's funny. Um but yeah,

I would paul I would explain to him, you know what he was explaining some of the complications of the relation between eastern orthodoxy and this whole

Conflict and maybe it was still for me a little bit just sort of you know being a christian but also being very influenced by like 9 11 was sort of my introduction by proxy into the world of islam and I remember in 2007 after just being a very pro bush and very pro iraq war pro war on terror and then all of a sudden really god called my heart to go be

What serve on a mission over there for a month? I think it was a month over in morocco africa like I Really struggled

I had to sort of disconnect myself from my americanism My sort of american nationalism where i'm an american i'm a conservative right -wing pro support the truce republican versus I need to Disconnect from just seeing

These people over here that i'm supposed to minister to as a christian and potentially share the gospel with and be a light

In the darkness. I need to see them as someone who needs jesus Versus you know a terrorist who might blow themselves up And it took me like a lot of almost like deprogramming like the four months four weeks that I was there um in this middle eastern country, um, so it just goes to show that there's

In this it's it's probably so different. Maybe there's a parallel to that when it comes to sort of being

In ukraine and trying to be a missionary there understanding There's this unique culture because even in this whole conflict at the end of the day

There's going to be a point where western media is going to move on to the next chapter And you know ukraine's still going to be there and you guys are going to hope if you're both back there by then

You're going to have to figure out how to be salt and light You know post, you know, whatever whenever this sort of closes the chapter as far as you know, american media goes um

Yeah, it just it just I think it's really important for people understand that i'm really I really your guys's insight just so fascinating Appreciate it

Yeah, thanks, I just want to say I think that's so valuable because despite Whatever even let's say zelensky's totally corrupt, let's say uh ukraine is

Doing bad things and russia's doing bad things too, but I just want to say that most of the people

I met here Yes, a lot of them don't accept christianity But they don't necessarily reject it either

I have a lot of friends who are very friendly with me despite Knowing my beliefs like I make it very very clear.

Yeah, i've bought it to them and just in my general experience in 12 years, uh

Ukrainians are good people like by and large there's good people here and they don't deserve what what is happening we really

You know like the I want to help them not You know, there is definitely things here.

I don't like like the orphanage industry and the abortion is terrible and the the

You know the hangover of the soviet era corruption, but I met a lot of people here and they're

I like them better than americans Usually yeah to tell you the truth So Yeah, paul.

I let me jump back to you so, uh, maybe just help us understand further the

What you're talking about? Uh, i'm not sure where you ended when you had to leave the library but um yeah, just try and continue off where you started help just help our audience understand sort of the

The nuance behind all of this and and what the challenges are for both ukrainian christians who are over there um and also even for someone like yourself who's trying to just reach that area and you're going to be

Involved, you know, like I said far long Uh after uh, western media decides to move on to you know

Probably the dumpster fire in the 2024 election, which is all incoming looking forward to that. But anyways, give us your thoughts um

I forgot where I left off. I had to step out of the library Yeah Let's see.

I've mentioned a couple of times the uh, the ideology of of russia. That's uh Probably something that's worth, uh bringing out a little bit to both equip

Americans whenever they're hearing, uh, russian propaganda or any pro -russian talk

And trying to figure out what's going on as well as uh for ukrainians or other westerners that are being influenced by the ideology

So the the Political worldview goes by a couple of names. One is a neo -eurasianism

One is multi -polarity One is fourth political theory

The idea is that this is a political theory that has come after three previous political theories the first political theory is

Liberalism, which is like classic liberalism. It's the Ideas that the american founding fathers had it emphasizes liberty and individuality

Uh, the second idea or the second political theory to come along was communism as articulated by marx the third was fascism uh, so nazis and uh, the italian fascists get kind of clumped together, but a lot of that comes from the uh frankfurt school and that whole worldview

Uh marxism emphasizes society whereas fascism emphasizes the state so the

The russian fourth political theory tries to take elements from each of those

And try to combine it into a hybrid fourth political theory That idealizes a multi -polar polar world where we have a dozen

Uh giant world powers rather than hundreds of individual nations um Part of the uh, the national socialist influence on that would be uh, a german philosopher named karl schmidt who came up with a

Geopolitical theology which basically said that large land masses should be expansive to control large land masses

That was the idea with hitler invading poland if uh If the national socialist ideas were inflicted only in germany, that would have been very bad news for germany but it wouldn't have necessarily caused people to die in poland or ukraine or any other direction so The russian thought of extending borders very much comes from the the national socialist perspective

The criticisms that the uh, russian political Theorists are making of the west is that the west have become uh

So liberal so individualistic that now the individuals are being able to identify as Individual genders, for example.

Yeah So if that's all that you're hearing if you're saying the west has become

Very individualistic to the point of each individual having his own gender. Yeah, there's something in that that needs to be called out the problem is that the westerners who are

Really pushing the 2s lgbtqia plus agenda Are not doing it from the liberal framework of classic liberalism that the founding fathers worked on But they're actually a lot closer to the national socialist side of things the third political theory

Which emphasizes the state over the individual? Hence the obsession with using the state to enforce the will on the individuals now

The the german nazis they didn't have uh, this whole bit about every individual trying to change his gender identity

But it came from the same frankfurt school that the rest of the national socialism came from And the whole gender identity politics is just a continuation of that so It turns out then that the uh, the leftist uh worldview politically speaking is very much tied to this

Idea which the ger the the russians are calling fascist and rightly so because of its emphasis on the state

And it happens that the same russians that are criticizing it are pulling off of fascism in order to make their expansive multipolar political worldview work, so it turns out that the left and the russians are

Two sides of the same coin So if you're siding with one you're really aligning ideologically with the other even though you have minor disputes

If you hold to a biblical worldview, which tends to support america's

Conservative values with plenty of criticisms. We've got all sorts of stuff. We can criticize about. Oh, yeah

Nobody's pretending otherwise If that's your idea if you're a right -winger if you're an american first that is truly consistent

Then you're the one who stands apart from both the left and russia So it's important to see those two as being more similar and our biblical

Political worldview as being the the different one. Yeah, andrew, um, it's interesting I want to get your thoughts on this andrew you think about all the prep

That you did uh, you and wade did to kind of prepare yourself for utah um and it's

Thinking of all the different sociological, you know The political climate and all those things of understanding of planning a church there

And you kind of does that do you feel like you kind of resonate with everything that we've learned so far about? The complexity of just the nature of ukraine and russia and like the religious climate, you know, it's almost what do you think about that?

What? What are your thoughts on that? yeah, uh, i'd say that the mormon religion has already capitulated to the government so much that Uh while that i'm in utah,

I still feel like i'm in the united states of america i'd say utah was probably different Around the 1880s, uh than it is now just because again of that capitulation of the lds organization, but I do find

Similarities here in terms of how the certain organization has so much influence on the political lives of individuals

Uh also in terms of just a cultural lds individual or a cultural mormon

Sounds very similar to people that most likely even exist in russia that there's this russian orthodox, uh

Head or part of the state and a lot of people just say yeah, that's just kind of culturally what it's like I'd say it's very similar uh here

But I find that The one of the most interesting premises is that any false religion or any false belief?

uh Eventually will get molded into some type of form of government though There won't be a biblical separation of church and state because there's no god to keep it separated

Uh, jesus christ is the one who's king of kings and lord of lords And he is the one who judges nations in the present and he

Will make sure that his forms of government that are given through biblical standards will ultimately survive in the end uh, but What I find interesting is if you think like islam or even hinduism with a caste society

Then we go to a false belief of this russian orthodox when there's no true god behind it. It all just molds into the state

Uh, and we find that that's happened here also in utah Uh, the lds organization is so heavily involved in local politics here, but i'd say it's to the detriment uh of the the state here in utah because when people get burned by the lds organization then they

They they fling so far to the left that it's not even funny like This uh, it's a very conservative state, but at the same time when you get closer to downtown, uh closer to the individuals here

They they swing so far left. It's uh, it's uncanny It's almost like and given given the misunderstanding of just the how the media has framed this whole ukraine

Narrative the closer you get to downtown utah the more ukraine flags that you see Because it's almost sort of like in a weird way for like for you guys even prior to this

This is just you know You're where you guys live and where you really take, you know You have your friends and colleagues and you know your pride and your national you're both sort of sporting those colors

And you take a very different identity where if I went to somewhere in alabama

It'd be like me wearing a ukraine flag. It'd be me like drinking bud light, you know, it's almost like that association

If you know what I mean? Um, yeah But um, yeah, let me ask you this With All of this and it couldn't get you've talked about russia being the enemy russia propaganda do you think even

With the passions you guys have surrounding this. Do you think there's a challenge between? Not seeing people who are russian

As like your enemy not seeing them as image bearers of god first versus, you know a potential threat a potential enemy

Like how do you how do you now? How do you navigate that like in all of this because i'm sure there's a lot of people who have really struggled with That themselves because you know, that's so interconnected.

You guys are literally next door neighbors. How do you guys navigate that as christians? Um, well i've actually uh challenged people on this

Point because I saw so many ukrainians Literally just hateful towards russians

And they would say putin is not doing this russians are doing it. They're allowing it and To an extent they have a point

I mean The large percentage of the population is going along with it, but there's a nuance there.

There's a delicacy there and uh, basically

It's that like I think it's two hundred and fifty thousand roughly russians fled when uh,

Uh putin signed the like, uh enforced mobilization they fled the country

So there's a quarter of a million people said no, I don't want to fight in this war um, and then you had like, uh, several, uh

Opposition media stations that left russia since 2022 and about 500

I think independent journalists. I don't remember the exact number But the point is uh, and then anybody that went

It was a relatively small number compared to the overall population of russia but there were several thousand protesters who were all beaten and thrown in jail and quickly silenced so Uh, I actually it was interesting because uh in the first month of the full -scale invasion.

I was in kishinev Moldova And I was going to a barber there And we would chat.

Um, he had he had pretty good english And he was from russia when he told me that his friends would basically you know, they might be opposed to the government, but uh over time they would

Realize that being a dissident would only Result in some kind of pain or repercussions and then they just go along with it and then eventually they just okay with it

So It's kind of like they a lot of russians. They just accept this is the way it is and You know, and those those are the more

Maybe the younger people that have some education and university and they're thinking more through the things.

They just go along with it but Then you have older people who are less educated.

They're maybe less Thinking critically about it and they they tend to think of like putin is like they'll criticize people under putin

But they'll never criticize putin so Like putin is spotless.

He can do no wrong kind of a thing. So um Uh, this is um

But the ukrainians they will um basically like One of my friends.

He's actually a good friend. He he was Kind of hateful towards all russians if you have to understand

They are doing a lot of damage here. They are blowing up homes They're They are doing so much damage here if you wanted to attack a country

Why would you do it this way? Right? There's no explanation for what he's doing and So the christians have this, uh

Just hate sometimes and but basically what he said to me was like He finally explained actually

I had to kind of pry this out of him. It was no we don't hate all russians it's just the muscovites and what he described as muscovites is those who are going along with this

You know all kremlin propaganda this whole narrative and everything so He differentiated between all russians and muscovites, but it was kind of hard for me to get him that out of him but yeah, yeah, so um

I think that the the christians and maybe even a lot of probably not a lot of non -christians

They understand that not all russians are bad, but they're very emotional

About the situation right now. So I appreciate this sharing that paul. Is there anything you could add to that?

I tend to have a bit of a more, uh Cynical view I guess Yeah In america,

I don't trust the public school system And america is a lot more free than russia is in america.

I don't trust the the average, uh secular university Yeah in america is a lot more free than russia is the uh

Public school system and the university is a giant uh propaganda brainwashing machine

That even here in the west where we are more free is not particularly trustworthy. So why am I going to trust?

The uh, the russian public school system and the russian universities, right? So even if we have someone who is an educated russian, okay, where did he get his education?

Probably from the russian public school followed by a russian Uh university, I mean

I follow russian professors on Academia, I see what they're writing

Those aren't the kind of guys that I would trust with uh with the generation of humans, right? I'm, not convinced that the uh, the average russian is necessarily a good guy in the sense of uh

Obviously on a theological sense we are all born Spiritually dead and in need of a savior.

We're all born path to hell and every single last one of us needs to be Uh detoured and believe in christ, right?

Yeah, that's what I want most for All of my loved ones. It's what I want the most for every stranger and for all of my enemies if Russians would believe in christ and have a consistent worldview

They wouldn't be able to fall for this nonsense that's going on in russia because it's it's a contradictory worldview with with the bible uh but it would seem uh logical to to say that uh, the uh

Average russian is is probably a little suspicious of his government. We all are right? Yeah Take your favorite president from your lifetime, right?

You could criticize him, right? Uh Same thing in russia, even if you can't vocalize it some more than others, right?

Uh, i'm not particularly fond of our current president. I got more Criticisms of him than the previous presidents, but we are changing presidents.

We got a good system here I would imagine that if you walk up to the average russian He might not be able to freely express himself.

Yeah, but Uh, he'll express at least a superficial disagreement with putin that doesn't necessarily mean he's a good guy though, right?

so Uh, i'm a little bit more cautious in assuming good out of people.

Yeah, especially when they are predominantly trained by an evil system like like russia

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and become an all access member now back to the programming It kind of makes me it kind of makes me think jerry.

Uh, like the difference between like a love and a hate It's like I could be totally wrong on this guys. I'm just thinking off of off the fly here

But in terms of saying someone's going to come and they break into my house and they want to kill my family

I think my initial inclination would not be i'm going to kill this person because I hate them

It would be actually i'm going to fight to defend my family because I love them And i'm supposed to because that's who god has given me

In terms of a relationship between two countries at war. I would I would see It would be a very similar thing.

I think the way Uh to break the bonds of not hating individuals is to understand

That we should have a commonality as individuals, right? Uh being fallen of course, but like paul was saying and jacoby

That's why he's he's living in ukraine is that to preach the gospel to save the individual so they can be self -governing

Individuals so that the nations can change that way. It's like isaiah, too In terms of jesus christ and the gospel bringing peace and turning swords into plowshares

But that can only really happen through Regeneration like it takes god dying on the cross

And changing our hearts in order for us to not be people haters and think that we're our own individualistic gods

Uh in in general, it's like How do you separate russia from the russian?

Well, the way you do that is by saying god can save this individual So i'm going to preach the gospel to them

But if they come to try to kill me, I love god. I love my family and i'm going to protect them

Yeah, if if that makes sense, does that make sense guys? I don't know Absolutely. Okay.

Yeah, gk. Chesserson said don't fight uh, he said fight because don't fight because you hate what's in front of you, but Uh, because you love what's behind you.

Ah, okay. Yeah and uh, I think that Sometimes ukrainians are they do have a hatred for russians, especially the aggressive

Ones who are coming with guns. Yeah But uh at the same time

They have a love for their country and for their family and they're fighting for what they love

So maybe it's not so simple as either or maybe they have a hate and a love at the same time

Yeah, of course the the goal should be, you know, not to hate but um

I guarantee not all the soldiers are christians so we can yeah No, it's something yeah what

I meant is I think what I'm where I before I lost my train of thought what I where I Was going when I was thinking of just world war ii specifically the war in the pacific with uh, japan and If you look even some at some of the u .s

propaganda And the way that they depicted japanese people. I mean I look at him like my goodness that is

Awful, you know, but you're thinking now japan's like one of our greatest allies like they love us and they love baseball You know, it's like over there one of the guys that goes to our church.

He played baseball in japan and they are Fanatics it is crazy over there in comparison to american baseball

It's so different, but i'm sure there are even people who are christians back then were like, how do I navigate? I'm supposed to fight for my country um, you know and protect the homeland in a sense and and and do my duty, but also

I want to These people are humans bearers of god I'm sure there's people who who have probably in every every international conflict.

There's always been complication to it, you know And so I think that's just something we have to navigate out So I think the biggest takeaway for this is just to help people understand that In any situation when it comes to media that there's so many different angles.

It's best to try and look at things holistically And and not just knee -jerk react to some parsed clips

And ultimately if you're a christian, you know The goal is to really just pray for peace and for reconciliation not in a physical sense that there would be

Resolution to this war where people would stop dying people would start fighting and killing each other But also just be praying that in the midst of this, you know people like yourself

Would be able to be salt and light and that the gospel would even flourish In an area that's dark by way of just war

Physically, but also in the spiritual places you have this, you know gospel false gospel that's being propagated, you know

People that are you know, maybe they're religious nationalistically, but they don't really understand what it's like To actually have a relationship with jesus and to have his righteousness to repent of your sin and put your trust in him

So I really appreciate you guys taking a lot of uh taking the time here Um, just real quickly, uh, jacoby.

We're gonna wrap up here and paul. Let's give you your final thoughts You are involved. You've got a charity that you do.

I remember seeing pictures of the camp that you did over in california With ukrainian refugees just tell anyone tell tell everyone about that real quickly

Uh, did you say no not not in california in karpatia karpatia Okay karpatian mountains, okay, there's a mountain range over here in a western ukraine

And so we do a camp there in the summer and uh every year We do it actually two of them.

Our church does one we help them with that and then we do our own camp Last year we did a youth camp this year.

We're doing a family camp And uh, that's just one of the ministries, uh that we do here.

My wife currently works with the humanitarian organization We serve the local church a lot and another church in a village nearby

I preach at our church once a month and and and the church, uh an hour south of here

And then we do a little english club and we we basically try to find creative ways to build relationships with people and just serve um

And so we did in in odessa for like over eight years. We did english clubs and camps various kinds of camps

And uh, actually you were mentioning baseball being popular in japan And I have a bunch of bats and gloves.

I I still need a few more gloves, but uh, I One of my dreams is to start a baseball league here possibly someday, so I taught some kids last summer at camp to play and they really liked it except for the girl

Who got hit in the head with a bat? Yeah, jacoby

If any if any of our listeners felt led to like donate or anything like that to the ministry that you have out there

Where could they go? Where could they find you? uh mission impact alliance .org Slash give um, and if you wanted to go towards something specific you can make a note like we

Can give it towards humanitarian aid or or towards a soldier or just the ministry in in general.

So Awesome awesome. Well, we'll have some links to when we drop this episode as well, too um paul any last thoughts you have

Uh from yourself that you could kind of give on this whole discussion as we kind of wrap up here everything By the way, everything you've said has been so Eye -opening and insightful man.

I've really appreciate you taking the time both here in the library and also outside the library I really appreciate the the opportunity.

I appreciate the the chance to talk about this openly a lot of folks have uh Already made up their mind and haven't really thought through it or a lot of folks are struggling with it and trying to figure out

What in tarnation is going on? Obviously, we can't trust the leftist media. So where exactly do we go?

And the answer to that question is the bible uh Whatever it is that we're hearing be it from the media the left the right the whoever

Weigh it against the bible as long as we're sticking to the bible. That's our authoritative source of truth

That's the one that's not going to lead us astray Might be difficult To figure out what exactly about the bible is applicable here or there, but that's the one that we can trust.

Awesome. Awesome All right. Well, I appreciate that. Uh, thank you guys so much for taking the time.

Uh, Jacoby It's uh, what is it like three o 'clock in the morning now? It's almost uh 2 34.

Is it okay if I say one thing? Yeah, it was just right. Yeah I'm sure you got to get you before the sun comes up over in ukraine

It's just You asked this one question to paul and I was like, oh, I really want to answer this question

I'll go for a minute. It was about I can't remember how you phrased it exactly, but it was basically about why are we bringing?

uh Uh cultural marxism in the states Uh verse and then at the same time we're fighting communism in russia something

Uh, something like that. I think it was essentially. Yeah, it was like russia Russia's communistic or socialistic and then we have the influence of marxism and uh

Whatever is critical race theory Why why is russia fighting against it if it's going to destroy us, you know?

I think this is actually so key because I was Asking the same question because I started researching george soros

And he believed in a philosophy from karl popper called open society so essentially first of all

He teaches that you can't know anything for sure. So you must be Perpetually skeptical about everything

You can't prove anything, but you can only disprove things So there's no absolute truth.

There's no objective knowledge. It's just like perpetual skepticism and an open society is one that has a variety of ideas

And they're all kind of sharing these ideas to evolve To try to get closer to reality

But the weird thing is is how do you know what reality even is in such a system?

and then so he he came since the late 80s he would he

George soros funding was behind many of the color revolutions in the arab nations and in uh yugoslavia and ukraine and he even had a hand in uh the fall of the soviet union so um

There's a book called the man behind the curtain what was written by uh, dan

Something he works with uh, or not No, he works the guy works with dan bongino if you know who that is

He's like his right hand man. He wrote a book called the man behind the curtain and uh

He explains a lot of this so Anyways, I was trying to figure out why george soros played a big hand in helping to topple communist regimes or uh eastern european regimes and Then he comes to america and he does the opposite.

He uses actual like cultural marxism to fight the government well The reason why is because he hates anything that claims to be uh have a hold on a

Absolute truth. So america by the declaration of independence, you know says that we uh uh

Yes uh, so he's basically saying

No, this isn't good. Uh, anyone who's nationalist is dangerous Anyone who's autocratic is dangerous and he floods all these arab refugees into all these european countries

Just to create this chaos so he can Break them down He can break down all these kind of autocratic what he views as autocratic powers

And god knows what the next plan is And so sometimes it seems like he's doing good things

But the long -term plan equates to chaos And that's literally what he's trying to do.

He thinks it will be good for society so it kind of goes back to like Karl popper said that anyone who

You must be always tolerant of all ideas But if someone is intolerant, then you must be violent against them

Because the intolerant must be removed society. So everyone is tolerant.

So it's kind of self -contradictory God no, and this is basically like soros's hero interesting

Well, yeah, I think maybe the biggest takeaway and I appreciate you sharing that man. It's just to understand that you know worldview Worldviews have consequences

And that is another intricate layer of people who are bringing, you know, their different worldviews.

I think just to wrap up here is uh, Francis schaefer talked about in one of his lectures a christian manifesto.

He'd always talk about how people see all these separate issues in part Uh, but they're they're not viewing it as one

They're not zooming out and seeing the big picture. All right, so, uh, I appreciate you taking the time Uh, like I said, the sun's probably coming up in ukraine.

So i'm gonna let you get a little bit of shut eye Um and and get on you know with your busy day again one last time

Yeah, absolutely Tell people the link one last time people can go to if they want to help With the charity stuff that you're involved in Uh mission impact alliance .org

Okay, awesome. All right. Well, thank you all for listening again. Definitely comment on your social media. Let us know what you thought I'm sure there's a lot more we could kind of go into and uh, but i'm sure you guys kind of get on with your

Busy day. So again, appreciate you guys making the time and we'll talk to you guys all next week on cultish.