Medical Reparations at Duke, John MacArthur, and Arguing with Egalitarians

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. There are two important topics

I would like to talk with you about today. The first is a new term, medical racism.

That's right, medical racism. Another term closely associated with that is medical apartheid and the need reparations because of past injustices in the field of medicine.

Now, we've seen this show happen in other fields. I've focused on it in evangelical

Christianity, how it's coming to seminary education, but social justice theory is now making inroads into medicine.

And so I am going to be interviewing a doctor from Duke University Hospital.

And I want you to hear what he has to say about this because he just attended a presentation made about this very topic.

And I think you will find it quite stimulating and interesting and probably a bit frightening. Secondly, I'd like to talk to you about biblical complementarianism.

I did a podcast about two weeks ago, and I focused on the reaction that a lot of big evangelical leaders were making concerning John MacArthur's comments at the

Truth Matters Conference. And he spoke about Beth Moore and more broadly speaking, women preachers, and he didn't agree with that position.

And he was tarred and feathered all over the place. After I did my podcast, I even waited a few days because I wanted to make sure everyone had said what they were gonna say, and I wanted the dust to settle.

And after I did my podcast, Beth Moore suggested John MacArthur was a misogynist. So she even entered the fray and a lot of people speaking out against John MacArthur, but a lot of people supporting him because of what the

Bible says about this topic. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about is what does the

Bible say about the role of men and women? Because I haven't had time to keep up with all the comments that I'm getting.

I mean, the video has, I think, over 40 ,000 views now. But there have been a lot of people messaging me, leaving comments, objecting to biblical complementarianism, and they're forwarding egalitarian assumptions, and I'll show you in brief what some of those arguments are.

So you can detect them, so you can answer them. I don't have time to go through every single argument that's out there because we would be here for about 12 hours, probably at least.

But I do wanna give you the gist of just the basic arguments that are made against the complementarian position.

And I'll explain what those terms mean. First though, let's talk about medical racism.

Last week, I was sent some screenshots from a PowerPoint presentation that was given at Duke University.

And this didn't make any headlines as far as I know, and even local media, but I think it's actually a significant presentation that was given there.

And I know a doctor who was present for this who is also a strong Christian, and we're gonna call him

Bob because he's in a sensitive situation working for Duke as a doctor, and we're not gonna reveal his identity.

But he was in the room for this presentation, and I'm gonna get his thoughts on this because essentially, if I can just summarize what happened here, the presentation was given by Dr.

Terry Laws, who has a PhD in MDiv and a BBA. And the title for this presentation was

Race, Medical Research, and Reparations. So we're gonna call you Dr. Bob.

Dr. Bob, thank you for joining me to talk about this because I've been talking about this stuff coming into the church, but now it's coming into, well, medicine.

What happens at this Race, Medical Research, and Reparations talk? Well, just a little bit of a background,

John. I saw the advertisement for this talk coming up a few weeks ago as I was walking into work one morning, and I've been sort of following the social justice movement and the discussions around the social justice movement, particularly as it relates to the

Christian world and what happened at the Shepherds Conference this past March, as well as the controversy over the

Dallas statement and many of the discussions even within my own local congregation here in North Carolina.

And so when I saw this advertisement, I quickly snapped a picture of it and began sending it to some of the guys at my church, as well as who

I know, who, for lack of a better term, are anti -social justice or unwoke.

And they started getting comments like, wow, wow, this is crazy.

Dr. Bob, I want to talk to you about what was actually said by Terry Laws because the speech title says

Reparations. We're part of this talk. And I noticed on one of the slides, it talked about medical racism.

What is medical racism? Dr. Laws, I think, was really trying to sort of frame this in the context of what is the history of race in medicine in the

United States? What are some of the historical issues and the historical circumstances that have led to the current paradigm that we have?

And so the first half of her talk, I think, was really focused on the history of the issue.

Give me a few of those examples then because when we talk about something like medical racism, which is a term that is new to me,

I need some specifics to understand what she's referring to. So I know there was a specific example that a couple of the slides you sent me had to do with who's lax and why is this part of medical racism?

So Henrietta Lax was an African -American woman who contracted cervical cancer.

It was the first half of the 20th century. So this is around sort of 30s, 40s when she was in the prime of her life.

And she ended up dying in 1951 from complications due to cervical cancer.

So she was from Virginia originally, but ended up at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland for treatment of cervical cancer.

And while she was there, she actually had a biopsy that was taken of her cervical cancer.

And there was a doctor there, a medical researcher,

George Otto Gay. I think he was actually a PhD. It's a cell biologist who ended up culturing her cells and actually creating,

I believe it was either the first or one of the first immortalized cell lines. Now what an immortalized cell line is, this is a concept of cell biology, are essentially cells that are cultured that can reproduce infinitely.

And so he was able to culture her cervical cancer cells in a way in which they didn't just die off because typically when you culture cells, then they grow for a little while, but they'll eventually die.

But he was able to induce these sort of like a stem cell where they can reproduce indefinitely.

And so what are called HeLa cells, HeLa being sort of Henrietta Lacks' initials, have gone on to become one of the foundational cell lines that have been used in medical research for the past almost 70 years now.

And so many medical breakthroughs have happened through research into HeLa cell lines. I believe that these cell lines were actually taken out of space and there had been work on them done like with NASA.

And so it's a very important tissue line that has led to a lot of medical breakthroughs.

This was a commonly done practice, right? Not just with African -Americans or minorities, but this was done with white people as well and all sorts of groups, right?

Where they would harvest. Sure. So I think what this is a little bit of historical context, this was done in 1950, 1951, and that's coming on the heels of World War II.

And the Nuremberg trials sort of revealed a lot of the abuses of Nazi scientists in particular, experimenting, yes, on Jewish prisoners, but much more widely on that, experimenting on the handicapped, experimenting on Soviet prisoners of war, everything from free cooling people's bodies down to see what is the effect of hypothermia to injecting experimental drugs and things like that.

It wasn't just the Nazis who experimented. I think a lot of people, particularly because the Japanese internment was brought up in this, and that's the horrendous and evil actions of the empire of Japan as well during World War II, experimenting on Chinese prisoners of war,

American prisoners of war, Japanese doctors committed tremendous atrocities on the same level as the

Nazis. And so this was something that was starting to come into the public consciousness around that time, but there was no formalized protection of human subjects research in the

United States really until the release of the Belmont Report in the 1970s. So this is pre -Belmont

Report, which if anyone has taken a bioethics class, one of the first sort of pieces of literature from pieces of medical literature, ethical literature that's discussed in sort of an ethics class 101 will be in the

Belmont Report. And so this is roughly 25 years before the

Belmont Report was released. Okay, so her cells were taken, they were used for medical advances, and was this because she was a minority or they were just doing this as a common practice?

They were just doing this as a common practice back then. You may have had certain groups, whether it be minority groups or even people in lower socioeconomic classes, not even necessarily racial minorities, probably disproportionately were affected by abuses and what we would consider today the informed consent process, but that process wasn't really formalized.

So this wasn't something that harmed Henrietta herself, it was just kind of an invasion of privacy, am

I correct in that? Yes, it's more of an invasion of privacy and a breach of patient autonomy, which you have the four principles of medical ethics, which

Dr. Laws actually referenced in this talk, which medical students are taught starting from first year of medical school, which is beneficence, which is doing good, patient autonomy, non -maleficence, which is probably historically at least the most important medical ethical principle, which is first, do no harm.

Unfortunately, I think that's going by the wayside and giving way to autonomy and now even the fourth medical principle, which is distributive justice, making sure that the results and the advances of medical care and public health are distributed equitably among the population.

So let me ask you this then, in regards to this larger topic of medical racism and then reparations, what's the point of bringing up Henrietta Lacks then?

I think the point that is brought up there is this was a dying woman when her cells were being cultured.

I think it can be safely assumed that this woman would not,

I'm not just a doctor, I also have a background in data science, so I do a lot of statistics and informatics work.

I think it's safe to say that this woman would not have had either a positive nor a negative impact on her survival from her particular condition due to these cells being cultured.

It really just comes down to the fact that there was no informed consent process at that time.

So what does this have to do with reparations then? Are we supposed to as taxpayers then compensate her family or how does this work?

I think what Dr. Laws' thesis was for this talk was that because Henrietta was a woman and she was a black woman living in the

United States in 1950s, is that not only were her cells taken without her permission and that all these great medical discoveries and breakthroughs were achieved through the use of her cell line, but that her family was not compensated in any way for this and that she brings up a number of other issues in regards to like the

Tuskegee experiments and things like that, which she believes that communities that have historically been negatively affected and disproportionately affected by abuses in the healthcare system, that there should be some sort of equity, quote unquote, some sort of redistribution of the benefits of medical research to communities that have been historically oppressed.

So I'm looking at a chart now and there's medical apartheid is another term that's used and there's all these examples given.

That's actually a book she referenced. Okay. I forget the name, but yeah, there's actually a book. It's like a 400 page long book called

Medical Apartheid by an author who basically for 400 pages, she just goes on about sort of the evils of the dominant culture and how we can make up for that in the current climate.

Now you're a doctor, so you would know more about this than I would, but you had mentioned that when we were talking about Henrietta Lacks, this was a common practice.

It wasn't limited to certain minority groups. This was just commonly done. And it would seem to me if the logic is that there needs to be some mechanism by which the system,

I guess, either pays reparations to family members or descendants or corrects in the eyes of those who like the idea, corrects for or compensates for modern people in the same sociological groups.

It would seem like you'd have to go and track down all the Caucasian and every other demographic group that has had some medical malpractice or violation of consent.

That just seems logical to me. Did she talk about that at all or was it just limited to minorities have been affected and that's the direction of the treatment of this?

Well, I will give Dr. Law's credit. She did mention the Appalachian region, particularly as somebody who is familiar with the state of North Carolina.

Apparently she'd done some talks here before, had colleagues, I'm not sure exactly what her knowledge was, but she did seem to have some knowledge of the state of North Carolina and that the opioid epidemic and things like that are predominantly affecting poor white communities out in Appalachia, which is something that's almost never talked about because it's poorly put together.

But she did, but that was one line within - It's not on her slideshow either.

No, it's not on her slideshow. It was sort of an offhand remark that she had made.

But it's interesting because she didn't want to include those communities in communities that should be compensated.

Well, think about the lawsuit right now against Purdue Pharma and sort of a class action lawsuit that is going down.

Purdue Pharma, as you know, is the pharmaceutical company, or if your audience doesn't know, they're the pharmaceutical company that is sort of implicated in producing many of the opioid drugs that have led to the current crisis that we see today that is affecting primarily rural communities in Appalachia.

Places like East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky. But she did not include those communities as communities that would be in need of medical reparations.

Okay, so she acknowledged at least that in Appalachia, there are people who have not taken advantage of or have been looked over by the system,

I guess. But she didn't address. Very offhand, it wasn't a focus of her talk.

She did not address reparations to those. Now, I wanna talk to you about specifically what she means by, because the talk has the title reparations in it.

And as I look at the slides which you sent me from this talk, she gives examples of reparations from the past.

So she cites like the Japanese who were put into internment camps were paid.

And she talks about apologies being given for slavery and Jim Crow and so forth and so on.

But she wants something extra, something more than that. So she's using these things as precedents to say that, well, if we've done that, then we should at least consider medical reparations.

Who's supposed to pay for that? Is there any kind of mechanism set up or is it taxpayers?

Is it - Your guess is as good as mine, John. So there's no specifics, it's vague. There's no specifics.

It's a nebulous sort of which, I can only guess as to what

Dr. Laws' political affiliations are or to what her policy proposals would be.

That was not discussed in detail at this talk, but apparently cash is needed and how that's to be supplied.

No clue is given. I'm looking at a slide right now. It says reparations in its various forms and it has a couple of categories.

It says apologies, truth and reconciliation commissions, commemorative events, buildings, statues and spaces, efforts that will prevent the sorts of repeated harms that drove the needs for reparations, attempts to improve the wellbeing of harmed communities and payments to individual survivors.

And it sounds like at the end of her talk, it was, we don't need the apologies so much. We need cash. We need some payments.

And this is where I think, this is the concern that a lot of us share and this is my concern is one of them.

This is how socialism I think creeps in the door because socialism is a redistribution scheme of the alleged oppressors to the alleged oppressed.

And of course they use history and a very cherry picked history usually to try to prove a narrative that says that this one group has been exploited and deserves, there is a moral imperative from the majority culture to pay financially or whether it's the allocation of privilege, which that would be the building statues and spaces so forth to this other group.

And so a transfer takes place. And the question is always, and this is where people think sometimes, well, that's not socialism.

Well, right, but here's the problem. How does this transfer take place? What's the mechanism set up for making this happen?

I mean, I'm just putting on hold right now the moral questions about obligatory payments and so forth.

Because I think that is well outside the scope of a biblical morality to have a moral obligation upon me for something that I didn't do.

And so we're like, that's a problem, morally speaking already. But assuming they're right about all that, who's gonna come in and make the arrangement that makes this supposedly equitable?

And of course, it's invariably going to lead to some kind of a managerial structure, which looks either a lot like the government or is the government.

And that's where I get concerned is that not just the government, but maybe even institutions like hospitals who are so heavily regulated already by the government, they are going to start trying to address this issue by redistribution.

So insurance companies are gonna have maybe different rates or different people groups.

You might see, I've heard this before, but triage could look very different because of historical inequities.

And we're gonna try to adjust for those. That is a terrifying thought for me.

And I just wanna get your take on that. What's your concern as you listen to a presentation like this? Well.

As a doctor. I'm not an economist. I'm obviously,

I think there is a very negative thing that has happened in the past 70 years within medical practice, where we even have insurance paying for the majority of our procedures in the first place.

Patients don't actually pay for the procedures that the medical care that they received as insurance companies.

So we've seen a massive inflation of medical costs as free money has come into the system from Medicare, Medicaid, socialized medicine.

More than half the healthcare dollars today are either directly or indirectly spent from the government purse.

It's not private individuals or private insurance companies that are inflating the cost, even though I think there's obvious abuses within the insurance industry.

My real concern comes to, what is this gonna mean for the physician?

What is this gonna mean for the doctor -patient relationship? What is this gonna mean for physician right of conscience?

Particularly if you have regulations that come in and tell you that you have to, which

I'm not familiar with the particular things you're talking about as far as triage. But I would be very concerned if different populations are treated differentially on the basis of inborn characteristics.

I think that can have a very negative impact and would actually be recreating many of the injustices that Dr.

Laws complains against. Interesting. Now, you're a Christian as well, and the reason

I'm having you talk about this in one sense is because we've seen this kind of talk start in Christian circles.

I remember I went to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and I heard talks that are very similar to this, where in fact, more modest than even this, where usually by the end of the talk, you're convinced there's some kind of an inequity that's taken place and it's not right, and you're supposed to lament it, and you're supposed to go out and do justice, but it's all vague.

And in the last year, I have seen that vagueness start to go away. And now, some of the same people that have given talks that at one time were vague, now they're starting to say, you know what, we need reparations in this country.

And echoing right at the time the Democratic Party is talking about this for the election next year, they're saying the same things.

And I think of people like Duke Quan or Thibedien Abouyle, like they want some kind of a mechanism by which taxpayers in this case,

I guess, are going to pay minority groups or disenfranchised groups.

And I'm seeing the same thing in medicine with this presentation. And I'm like, is it everywhere?

It's like everywhere I turn. So yeah, that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk about it is to just show those parallels.

I mean, do you see that, that this is the same kind of message that is creeping into conservative churches?

It's dialectical materialism at its core. Whether you're talking about the healthcare system or the vast majority of physicians are secular.

And I'm obviously all for right of conscience and things like that. And people have a right to believe and to practice the way they want, but as guaranteed by the

Constitution of the United States. But what really concerns me is sort of what

I see as the mission drift within medicine on the whole to where we've completely rearranged our priorities.

In this dialectical materialism that I see, there has to be justice now. We have to have it now.

There can't be any sort of delayed justice. This is the only life we have. And ultimately what

I'm guessing I'm getting at is this is a worldview issue. And that you've seen a dialectical naturalistic materialism that I think has been in the medical field for a long time, starting to infiltrate the churches.

I've seen this in my own local congregation, but it's this cry for justice.

We all have an innate need and an innate desire for justice. I think that's something that as beings created in the image of God, we all long for.

The Christian faith, you go back all the way to the Apostles' Creed. What is one of the components of the Creed is that we believe that the

Lord will return to judge the just and the unjust. And so there's this,

I think, innate recognition that God has imprinted upon us for a desire for justice.

But within a materialist worldview, the only mechanism for justice or the only end to justice, it has to be in this life.

Otherwise, it's not justice. Because if you're coming from the assumption that there is no resurrection, there is no life after death, then you're gonna want to strive for perfect justice in this world.

The only problem is, is that we see just how imperfect the world is. That's why physicians exist in the first place.

People get sick, people get old, people die. That happens.

I've seen people cut down in the prime of life from cancer.

It is truly one of the, other than sin, it's one of the main things that just affects every demographic group.

And whether you're rich or poor, you get sick, right? Cancer doesn't discriminate.

Yeah, one out of one people die. Yeah, yeah, we're all equal on that level.

Yeah, and that's true equality. And I think it's seen most in the healthcare, amongst healthcare providers,

I think, are the one set of professions in society that most hits close to home and most recognize that reality.

The issue I think that scares me is that much of the great medical successes that we have, whether we would talk about medical ethics or documents like the

Belmont Report, those are produced from a society that has an understanding of what right and wrong is.

That there is not just sickness, but there is good and evil. And that if something is evil and something is wrong, it needs to be dealt with.

But I think secular philosophers, secular scholars, or even people who would have a claimed

Christian faith, but who would be more on what we would call the Christian liberal side, basically undercut their own argument for justice by denying the very existence of evil or redefining that in an unrecognizable form.

It's very interesting thoughts that you have there, Dr. Bob. I appreciate you joining me and explaining some of this.

And my point is not to just make everyone freak out, but I think we do need to be paying attention that, yeah, these ideas can start creeping in and they can have a disastrous effect.

And we certainly don't want that to happen. So I appreciate it. I hope that there are others,

I'm sure there were probably in the room who had the same concerns that you have. And I hope that they can keep it together and keep some of these ideas from taking form.

Well, we need physicians who are physicians of conscience. Physicians historically have often been on the front lines of pushing back against immorality in the culture.

And if more of those Nazi physicians and Nazi scientists or Japanese physicians had stood up to the evil that they saw around them and had actually advocated for their patients, maybe there could have been different outcomes in history.

I think it's important, particularly for Christian physicians, to yes, fulfill their role and to fulfill their duties as physicians to treat all their patients equally and the same dignity and the same respect, but at the same time, challenge ideas that would undercut the very foundations for this noblest of professions.

Yeah. Well, God bless you for doing what you do. And I certainly hope that other doctors and medical personnel watch this and start thinking about it.

And that we have more Christians, especially going into that field. I'm glad you're there. All right. Well, thank you,

John, for having me. All right. God bless you. Talk to you later. Bye now. Well, I'm grateful for doctors like Dr.

Bob. I grew up spending a lot of time in waiting rooms because I had some autoimmune issues through my teens, especially.

And every vacation we went on, it seemed like either my brothers or myself would do something foolish, land ourselves in the emergency room.

So my family got in the habit of just comparing emergency rooms with one another. So we have been the beneficiaries of an excellent

American healthcare system. And the thought that the foundational assumptions which made this healthcare system great are being challenged scares me.

I do believe God's on his throne that keeps me from going crazy. But I also believe we need to understand these ideas, be able to articulate them with our neighbors, with our friends, with our families.

And understand them for when we get into the ballot box and we vote. So that's why I share any of this.

I wanted to switch gears now though and talk to you about another topic. And that is biblical complementarianism. Because I think you ought to be prepared for egalitarian arguments.

So let's define some terms here. What is egalitarianism? What is complementarianism? Egalitarianism, when it comes to gender roles, is the idea that men and women are essentially equal.

That men should be able to do what women should do in their role. That women should be able to do what men do in their role.

And there's a range of belief on this. But in the extreme forms, which we are seeing now in our culture, men are playing women's sports.

And I think in the next 10 years, you'll probably see consent laws for minors go away. I mean, whatever divisions were there from creation, from tradition, from the

Bible, they're being washed away. And we are living in a culture that wants equality at every level.

And so this word egalitarian is actually bigger than just the gender roles of men and women. It applies to other relationships as well.

In fact, really what it is against is hierarchy. Any kind of hierarchy. Now, the terrifying thing is that hierarchy is inevitable.

So what happens in egalitarianism if they get their way, and I'm talking about French Revolution type egalitarianism, which

I think is kind of what we're dealing with in a different form now. You have individuals and you have the government.

And there's really no mediating structure between them. See, in hierarchy, you have family, you have business relationships, you have other things that will end up being mediating structures.

And you see this in scripture. You see responsibilities that are different given to the government, given to the family, given to individuals.

And so because of that, and the church as well, because of that, you end up with less of, more divided powers and less of the opportunity for tyranny.

Whereas if egalitarianism has its way, you will have tyranny. That's why it goes so well with communism, honestly.

This fraternity of man that we're all equal. And when it comes to gender roles, the opposite side of egalitarianism is complementarianism.

So they argue with one another, these two positions. And complementarianism is the idea that, well, gender roles are complementary.

So if you're a man, you might have a different way of relating to your child than your wife may have.

For instance, men tend to be more tough love type people. Women tend to be more nurturers.

Child really could use both of those things. And God designed it that way. And complementarians say those two roles are great.

And it's a beautiful thing when they come together. And this isn't just for families. This is also in the greater society as well.

Men and women have different functions. And that's a good, good thing. Doesn't mean that they are intrinsically worth more or less.

They're worth the same in God's eyes. They're both part of the imago Dei. But they are different in their roles.

And that's all complementarianism is saying. Well, since I made that video two weeks ago on John MacArthur's response to Beth Moore and women preachers and how a lot of big evangelical guys were really angry at him,

I have been flooded with all sorts of comments and even personal messages trying to show me the way, the light of egalitarianism in scripture, that women should be able to have the roles that men have.

There really isn't a difference. And scripture teaches this. And there's been various flavors of it that have been sent my way.

But I want to show you the most common arguments that I hear for egalitarianism against complementarianism.

And I want to show you what my response would be. And I wanna be as biblical as possible with this. So I think it will help you.

This debate is not going away. If anything, it's gonna heat up more. In fact, today, as I'm making this video,

John MacArthur preached a sermon where it was all about this topic of complementarianism.

And he does talk about the role of the pastor. And I wanna show you two clips on this and see what you think of this.

Here we go. Here's clip one. Guess what? When women take over a culture, men become weak.

When men become weak, they can be conquered. They can be conquered.

You're watching that happen in this country. As more and more and more and more women ascend to power, more and more men become weaker and weaker and weaker.

And the level of vulnerability just keeps escalating. Your men will fall by the sword because they become weak.

You've literally lived out the curse of Genesis 3. Amen. I have been longing to hear that, and we don't hear it from evangelical celebrity pastors.

John MacArthur is commenting here on Isaiah 3. You can read it if you want. But one of the effects of women stepping outside their role, usurping the men, is verse 25.

Your men will fall by the sword and your mighty ones in battle. You're gonna have some weak men. And we look at our culture, and that's exactly what we see, a bunch of weak men.

I have to wonder how many guys hearing this resonate with it and realize, man, I'm not getting that from my pastor.

You know what? Because some of the pastors out there are also weak men. The role of the pastor,

I mean, think about a shepherd. A shepherd is there to kill wolves and shear sheep, not just nurture and carry the one little lamb.

The shepherd is a tough dude out there in the wilderness. It's a manly dude. And the problems in this culture are not, even in regards to the

Me Too movement and abuse, are not too much masculinity. It's not too much macho -ness. It's not too much patriarchy.

It's not enough of that stuff. We don't have men who are willing to defend their sisters, their mothers, their wives, their daughters.

There was a time, even in this country, not long ago, when if a man abused a woman, man, the police should get there first because we don't want the fathers taking care of business.

I'm not advocating vigilante justice. I'm just saying women are vulnerable. Scripture says they're the weaker vessels.

Eve was deceived and Adam was the one who gave in willingly. So he had his own weakness, but there is a vulnerability women have and men are supposed to step in.

That's part of complementarianism. Our culture has erased these roles. The feminist movement has had a detrimental, devastating effect on this culture in ways that we don't even quite realize.

I don't think there would be a Me Too movement. Even the legitimate parts of the Me Too movement, I'm not talking about the

Kavanaugh stuff. I'm talking about people who are legitimately concerned that there's abuse that's going on from men towards women.

We don't talk about the young boys who get abused in Hollywood and so forth, but that's another subject,

I guess. But the women who get abused, I don't think we would have this movement if it weren't for the fact that the feminist movement has really gained the culture and won because you'd have men taking care of business more.

And I just, that's a random mind a little bit, but I just have to say

I love that John MacArthur said that we need that. He doubled down, he didn't give an inch. And that's the kind of preaching

I think a lot of young guys like myself are hungering for, especially guys who grew up in broken households.

I fortunately did not, but guys who grew up without dads, I mean, they're longing to hear this kind of thing.

Let me show you another clip. And I, this is a kind of a humorous story John MacArthur tells.

And I just wanna make a little point about this clip. It's in relation to his comments about Beth Moore.

And then I'm gonna get into egalitarian arguments. And we're gonna walk through what those arguments are and how to answer them.

I remember when I was in Bucharesti, Romania some years ago, it was a pastor's conference. There were about 1 ,200 or 1 ,500 pastors and their wives in this church.

And they wanted, after I spoke a lot, they wanted to have a Q &A. So one of the guys asked the question, what does this mean, women will be saved through childbearing?

And I said, well, he just blurted out, well, of course it doesn't mean spiritual salvation. It doesn't mean you're gonna go to heaven if you have babies.

You know, you don't get eternal life by having babies. So it can't possibly mean that kind of salvation.

It has nothing to do with your soul salvation. And all of a sudden, the room got just dead flat.

It was like somebody sucked out all the oxygen. And I could see confusion on the faces of men and women.

And the moderator sitting next to me said, you just dropped a bomb.

Because, you know, in our theology, you can lose your salvation. And one way a woman would lose her salvation, they had been taught, was by doing anything to prevent a pregnancy.

So that's how they misinterpreted that. That's why they all had 15 kids. And these poor beleaguered women, and they're looking at their husband saying, you had to be wrong about that verse.

Of all the options possible. Couldn't you have been wrong about like sprinkling or something?

Oh my goodness. John MacArthur just made fun of foreigners. And the whole audience laughed.

I am waiting for J .D. Greer, Danny Akin, and Lincoln Duncan to come out in defense of Romanian men, and oppose

John MacArthur on this horrible joke that he told. Now, I say this in jest, of course. But the reason I say it is because,

I went to Grace Community Church for a summer and a semester when I was in seminary. And this is just what happens every

Sunday. This kind of banter. In fact, I found out that at the Truth Matters Conference a few weeks ago, there was actually a whole session,

I didn't know about this, on Beth Moore. So one of the speakers talked about Beth Moore and her erroneous theology, and then

Todd Friel asked John MacArthur, so what do you think about Beth Moore? So that's why it was funny. And this is just the kind of banter that goes on there.

So it's a normal thing, and it's part of the church culture. And I thought I would just let you know about that. But on to more serious things now.

I wanna show you the most common arguments that are given to defend egalitarianism, promote egalitarianism, and oppose complementarianism.

Now, this is not an exhaustive list, but this is a list of the most common arguments that I see.

First is conflating egalitarian equality with intrinsic worth. So statements like John MacArthur is wrong, all people are created in God's image, or God sees women as equal, so they should do what men do.

Now, I see this in various forms, and sometimes it's put in a very ambiguous way.

It might be the most common argument I see, but it's usually not presented as an argument. It's usually just a statement that you want to agree with because it sounds right, but then something just feels wrong about it, and you're not sure why.

Russell Moore has a habit of doing this a lot. He'll talk even about Beth Moore, and he'll say that, well, we should just make sure that we treat women and men in God's image.

And of course, everyone's made in God's image, right? Like, it's not just limited to gender, like children and adults, both made in God's image.

Every ethnic group, made in God's image. If you're a person, you have the Imago Dei. Russell Moore actually does this a lot when it comes to immigration, that, well, the alien and the sojourner, we just need to treat them like image bearers of God.

And it's like, that's not the debate. No one is arguing about that. Everyone believes that we should treat them as image bearers of God.

The debate, when it comes to complementarianism, is what are the roles that God has for men and women?

And when it comes to the immigration debate, the debate is not whether people from other countries that want to come here illegally are made in God's image.

We know that. It's should they be allowed to come in and take advantage of all the privileges that come with being an

American? And can our system sustain that? And should we be able to vet them?

And there's more questions than just that. But to just say there's a moral principle that men and women and every ethnic group and children and parents and everyone's just made in God's image, therefore, and then insert your political agenda, that is sneaky.

And I see that all the time. Now, we just gotta recognize that's not an argument. Not for complementarian, or not for egalitarianism.

It's not an argument for that because no one's arguing that men and women are worth different amounts.

They're equally valuable before God. So we can just kind of dismiss that one. Narrowing the focus.

Here's the other thing that I hear a lot. First Timothy 2, 11 through 15, and First Corinthians 14, 33 through 25 are the only passages that talk about complementarianism.

Or you'll hear this, most of the commands concerning gender roles are cultural. Does this sound familiar at all to you?

It should sound familiar to you. This is the same argument that gay Christians will use.

They'll say there's only five verses in the whole Bible that address homosexuality. And if we can just go through each of these five verses, then we'll show you homosexuality isn't a sin.

So, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah, that was about hospitality. Let me show you that that was hospitality. If we can just get around that, then okay, homosexuality is not a problem in that passage.

And then they just march through the other problem passages, they call them. And I addressed this a few weeks ago. I said, if you really want to be honest about the intention of scripture, you're gonna have to assume at the outset that the

Bible is a heterosexual book. It's not just that there's five passages about homosexuality.

It's like, and this is the example I gave, it's like the gluten -free cookbook. You can say, well, there's not a lot about gluten in here.

Right, because it's the gluten -free cookbook. It assumes at the outset that you're not gonna use any recipes with gluten and the

Bible is a heterosexual book. Well, it's the same thing with this. The Bible is a complementarian book.

The Bible assumes at the outset in Genesis that men and women are different and they have different roles.

And so when you're going through scripture, you're going to see different commands given to men and women and different assumptions about men and women, which

I'll get into a little bit later on. So it's disingenuous to say that, well, there's only two passages or three passages or whatever number you want on it that talk about this.

And if we can just get around those passages and do some gymnastics in the text, then we can accept complementarianism.

Like, well, no, actually, because there's a lot more passages than that because the assumption of complementarianism is throughout scripture.

So you're gonna have to overturn large narratives in order to establish an egalitarian motif.

And it really just won't happen. It's impossible. The idea that most of the commands concerning gender roles or cultural, yeah, that's not exactly true.

I mean, Paul references creation. He's the one that most people go after with on this. Well, he's just trying to say what he needs to say in a

Roman context. And we know that this isn't really what Jesus preached. Jesus wants egalitarianism, but Paul had to tiptoe very softly in this

Roman context. Well, no, because Paul continually references creation. And I'm gonna show you that as his reason for gender roles.

Here's a third one. Traditional gender roles are the result of the fall. Have you ever heard this? Traditional gender roles are the result of the fall.

Men and women were equal before Genesis 3 .16. Now, what does

Genesis 3 .16 say? Well, I'm glad you asked. Genesis 3 .16

says, "'To the woman,' he said, "'I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth. "'In your pain you will bring forth children.

"'Yet your desire will be for your husband, "'and he will rule over you.'" So here's what egalitarians will say about this.

They'll say, look, it says clearly in scripture that he will rule over you after the fall.

This is part of the curse of the fall. Now, I wanna point out a few things about this. Number one, having desire for her husband is not sexual desire.

How do you know that, John? Well, because everything was good before the fall, and sexuality was part of that.

Adam and Eve were sexual beings, so this isn't talking about sexuality. This isn't like a Me Too moment.

Number two, I wanna show you this passage. This is Genesis 4 .7.

This is when Cain murders Abel, and God comes to Cain and says, "'If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted?

"'And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, "'and its desire is for you, but you must master it.'"

Same construction in Hebrew, that this desire is a sinful desire, but you must master it.

Now, I'd like to suggest to you that what is going on here in Genesis 3 .16

is Eve has a sinful desire for her husband. This is after the fall. Her desire, she's gonna have a sinful desire for her husband.

Desire's not wrong in and of itself. This is something different. And he will rule over you. So what we're essentially looking at is a passage that is referring to the curse that God has placed on women, and he's placed on men too.

They're gonna sweat and toil as they cultivate the ground, and so there's a curse on both, but this is part of the curse on women.

Men are stronger, and men will dominate them. Men will rule them even though their desire is to actually rule their husbands.

And you can, I think, honestly say this is where the feminist movement came from. This is the first impulse, women's desire to rule, right?

And that's not something that God has given. We're gonna look at some other passages that show that, but women have to watch themselves because this is a temptation.

Now, the other thing I've heard is that the gospel eliminates traditional gender roles. So there are neither male nor female, slave nor free man, all is in Christ.

Look at the prominent women Jesus had in his ministry. I mean, the first people to see him raised from the dead were women, and there's no doubt there were prominent women in Jesus's ministry, but they weren't apostles, and this does not prove what the egalitarians are trying to prove.

The gospel establishes traditional gender roles. Let me give you a quick example.

1 Peter, women are to submit to husbands, even if they're not

Christians. Why are they to submit? What's the reason given? The reason given is so they can win them without a word, so they can be a gospel witness to women, to their husbands.

That is the establishment of traditional gender roles, not the elimination of traditional gender roles.

Now, here's another one. This is my fourth big category, finding exceptions to the rule. So if you're in a debate and you're an egalitarian, you better whip this one out because you can tie a big knot and no one will have time to untie it, and we don't have time to go over every single example here, but I'm gonna try to get you through this as best

I can. So women were judges, they were queens, business owners, apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, deacons, prayer leaders, overseers at house churches.

Look, women can do everything a man can do. Now, that's not true, and I'm gonna tell you why.

Let's walk through this. In the first example here, women were judges, the example of Deborah is used.

In the story of Deborah and Barak, we don't have time to get into it, Deborah essentially tells Barak after Barak says, well,

I'm not gonna go do what we should do unless you come with me. Deborah says to him, says, this is verse nine,

I will surely go with you, nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the

Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman. So what's Deborah saying? She knew that this was not her natural role that she should be playing.

She knew it was Barak's role, and she says, you're gonna lose some glory over this, basically.

So this actually establishes gender roles, and this is in judges, it's in judges.

This is not a prescriptive story that this is the way it ought to be. This is a deviation, which

Deborah admits, and it's a description. So that doesn't work.

They were queens, women were. Well, there's one example of that, there's Athalia, and that was not a authorized example of royalty at all.

So again, a description, and they're trying to get a prescription from it.

How about business owners, Proverbs 31. Now this one, I actually like this one in a way, because yeah, absolutely, women can own businesses, why not?

But look at Proverbs 31. Look, and without going to the passage and reading all of it, she's very successful.

She, I mean, it almost seems impossible for her to do everything that she does while running the house and so forth, but what she does is she makes her husband successful at the gates of the city, and you see the picture in Proverbs 31 of a woman who is about her home and her family.

She's not out there doing things in the community. Her husband is out there. She's, her life, we'll put it this way, revolves around home life, and so yeah, she's making her husband successful and her family successful, and they rise up and they're gonna bless her, but she is maintaining a biblical gender role, and so this is a terrible example.

It proves the opposite, and of course a woman can be a business owner, but is that supposed to be what a woman's life revolves around is the question, and no, that is not her primary task.

That is in service to her family when she does do it in a traditional family, and of course

I'm not talking about women who aren't married or don't have families or aren't part of one. There's obviously exceptions.

There's gift of singleness and so forth, but the normative creation blueprint that God has put down is for men and women to get married, to have children, and it is in that context that you see

Proverbs 31. Apostles, were women apostles? No, they were not. Romans 16 .7

is referring to the small a apostle, and most of us learn this when we are taking first year theology.

If we go to seminary or if you're just in Sunday school, you get to know this because, I mean, you just have to understand this when you read the

New Testament. There are small a apostles and there are big a apostles. There's the 12, and there will be 12 pillars in the new

Jerusalem in Revelation, right? There's not gonna be pillars for women who are small a apostles.

We're all apostles. There's a universal sense in which everyone's an apostle. We're all messengers of the

Lord, right? But there is a unique role, a unique office of apostle, and there are no women in that role, so that doesn't work.

Prophets, Acts 21 .9 and 1 Corinthians 11 .5.

The first example is Philip's daughters who prophesied, and the second example is in 1

Corinthians 11. Women are supposed to prophesy with their heads covered, which ironically, if you look at 1 Corinthians 11, this whole passage screams complimentary gender roles, so going there to prove this is not a great idea, but there was no ongoing office of prophet, prophetess.

It wasn't like this, these were just examples of women who prophesied, and they weren't having authority over men in these instances, so that doesn't work.

Evangelists, Philippians 4, two through three. Yes, women are called to evangelize, and the

Great Commission applies to them just as it does to men, and here's the thing.

The gift of evangelism is actually not sharing your faith, it's teaching others to share your faith, and I'm not gonna get into that whole discussion about why that gift is that way, and whether that applies to women or not, but that doesn't,

I just wanna say that that doesn't mean that they were evangelists just because you share the gospel. Just means you're a

Christian if you share the gospel, right? Teachers, Acts 18, 24,

Titus 2, 3, 5. Yeah, women should teach, right? They absolutely should teach. Women should teach other women.

Older women should be teaching younger women. They can also teach children, right? Otherwise, what's being a mother?

But they cannot have authority over men, and the example in Acts 18 is

Priscilla and Aquila, so husband and wife, they essentially invite Apollos to their house, and they teach him, and this is the thing, it's in their house, this is a husband and wife, and that does not seem to me like it's parallel with having the prophetic role or the pastoral role in a church setting to have authority over men.

That is just not equivalent. Now, what about deacons? Can a woman be a deacon? Well, in Romans 16, 1,

Phoebe is called a diakonos, a servant, what the word means, and in 1 Timothy 3, 11, in the qualifications for male deacons, which is right after the qualifications for elders, overseers, we find this verse in verse 11, in the same way the women, that's gune, gunekas, it's just a general word for women, are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers, but temperate and trustworthy in everything.

And then in verse 12, though, it says a deacon must be faithful to his wife. So how does a woman fulfill that?

All that to say, even if you're in a church that has a separate office for deaconess, or they say there can be women deacons, there are different qualifications.

Clearly, there is a separation in the passage between what a male deacon does, and if you believe in a female deacon, what a female deacon does.

Now, I happen to be skeptical of that argument for female deacons, but I understand where some churches get that, and why they think that there is an office for that.

But look, in a general sense, we're all diakonos, we're all servants, in a general sense.

Of course, women can do that. But even if there's a role for deaconess, is it equivalent in every way?

Is it the same role that men have? It clearly cannot be. So that doesn't work either.

Prayer leaders, 1 Corinthians 11 .5. Again, going to a passage on head coverings, not the best idea, that women, because men are the head of women, women need to wear head coverings when they pray.

I wouldn't go there to try to prove that women are equal to men in an egalitarian sense.

Yeah, they can pray, but prayer leaders? Prayer leaders? No, the text doesn't bear that out.

Overseers of house churches. Okay, just because, I'm just gonna do this one quick. Just because a house church may have met at a woman's house, doesn't mean the woman was leading the service.

She may have just been opening up her home. And so, again, none of these work. These are all examples that you'll hear thrown at you to try to confuse the topic, and some people legitimately believe that there's no difference because they haven't studied the whole

Bible, or they're not trying to understand the whole Bible in its total context, they are eisegeting.

They're trying to go to specific verses that will forward the cause that they have, which is egalitarian.

So, what's the last category here? Interpreting the general by the specific. So, this is where you get buried in word studies, and this is where academics,

I think, really like to show off a bit. So, the word eiser, for helpmate.

He says, well, it means helper, and look, there's other passages in the Old Testament where God is an eiser, he's a helper.

Well, a helper in what way? In Genesis, women were to be wives, or to be the helpmate of their husbands, in what sense?

Having dominion, right, over the earth. They're supposed to help men in that. So, this isn't a general, just like, well, they're a helper, and it doesn't say men are helpers to women, right?

So, there's something clearly being communicated here, something unique to women. Kephale, the word for head.

Say, well, that means head, or source.

I don't know why I put head in this PowerPoint. It means source, is what they'll say. It's the word for head, though. So, in like 1

Corinthians, where it says that God is the head of men, and men are the head of women, and that's why women should wear head coverings, and so forth, they'll say, well, that just means source.

Well, there's clearly a progression, though, in the passage, and it's a symbol of authority, is what the passage says.

So, there is something uniquely authoritative about that, and without getting into the details of how kephale is used, and eiser, and some of the other words that I didn't even mention here, this is my advice.

Whenever you're getting into an argument with someone who's more of an academic, and you're not, always go to the context, because that is the reason that these arguments fail.

They're looking for outliers, ways that, in the case of eiser, it's not really an outlier.

In the case of kephale, though, they are. They're looking for examples that they can pull in from other passages where, well, it doesn't mean exactly what the translators said it means in this passage, and it doesn't have to mean complementarianism, and if you look at the broader context, just use their translation.

He's, okay, well, it's source, okay. So, let's say that it's, instead of head, we'll use the word source. Now, let's read the passage.

Well, look, there's still a difference between men and women. Look, there's still an authoritative structure of some kind here, and men have a different role than women.

Wow, okay, that doesn't really make a whole lot of difference, and it doesn't even seem to fit the passage now, and that's what

I would suggest you do. If you're really interested in finding out more about some of the specifics of the linguistic arguments and so forth, there's a book called

Two Views on Women in Ministry, Counterpoints Bible and Theology by Craig Blomberg, Tom Schreiner, and two other authors, and really, it's a great book.

I love those books where they just compare different viewpoints because you can see both sides represented, and there's fuller discussions about that in that book, and I would recommend it to you.

I had to read it in seminary, but I'm just not someone who thinks these are that complicated of arguments.

I just don't think that this is that involved of a debate, and I'm happy to go into details, and if we really need to debate linguistically what certain words mean, but if you look at the overall picture, and if you just read things in their context and use some of the assumptions from a grammatical, historical, and I would say common sense, hermeneutic, you don't have these issues, so that's my advice.

Now, I made a positive slide for you here, a positive case, and this would be my response.

I've already been giving you that, but let's go through this briefly. Intrinsic worth does not equal egalitarianism, guys.

Look at the Trinity. Look at how the Father and the Son have a unique relationship, and the

Holy Spirit, but they all have different roles. Jesus said, I've come to do the will of my Father.

He's trying to please the Father. The Holy Spirit wants to glorify

Jesus, and yet they are all part of the Godhead. Look at other hierarchical structures.

Look at parents and children. Look at the master -slave relationship, and I bring that up because Paul brings it up. Kings and subjects, rulers if you wanna put it that way.

Yeah, am I equal with President Donald Trump? Yeah, in the intrinsic worth

I am. Does he have more authority than me? Does he control things in my life that I cannot control in his life?

Yeah, and so when I was a child, the same thing with my parents.

I was equal to them in worth, but I did not have the authority that they had, and we had different roles.

Gender roles are normative. There are different commands given to men and women, and you can screen capture this and look up all those verses on your own, but look,

I'm just gonna go through these categories real quick. In appearance, in temperament, in war, in family, in church, and in government, there are different roles that Scripture just assumes.

Women and men are supposed to dress differently. Did you know that? Both the Old and New Testament say this. Women and men have different temperaments.

They are wired differently. Men are supposed to go to war.

Women should not be going to war. They have different roles in the family. In the church, men are uniquely equipped to serve as overseers.

Women are not given that position. That includes the job of the overseer, which is preaching. In government, we see examples in the

Old Testament, principles, that really, it ought to be men. And look,

I don't wanna say this. I don't hold the position that it's a sin for a woman to be in politics, necessarily.

I mean, it could be, depending on the heart of the woman who's doing it. I look at it like Deborah and Barack, honestly, and I look at that story and I think, man, where was

Barack? Why was he such a weak man? The women are going to step up if men aren't going to take that role.

And that's a judgment on the men. And that is an indictment of the men because they're being weak. I don't know that women who run for public office are gonna be in trouble.

And I'm trying to think if I've ever voted for a female. I don't know that the options ever presented itself to me. But all things being equal, a radical communist and then a female who is not and will promote biblical principles of government,

I'll vote for the female. But if all other things being equal and it's a female and a male, I recognize that men are really supposed to be the ones in authority.

And part of the reason for that is they're gonna incur a stricter judgment. If things go to pot, it's that man's fault, all right?

And we should be protecting women from having to bear those kinds of responsibilities.

In fact, women have a much higher calling. That's my position. Raising children, that is a high calling.

And the Bible even, this is talked about in scripture in multiple places, women's role in the home.

Even in 1 Corinthians chapter, I believe it's 11, when Paul invokes creation and the angels and he says, you ought to wear head coverings.

And there's a debate as to whether head coverings could be a woman's long hair or a covering they put on, but those need to be worn for the sake of the angels and creation.

That's their symbol of authority. And right after that, Paul says, and men came from women.

Women are the ones that create life and raise children. I mean, have you ever heard the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world?

There is an influence that mothers have that fathers do not. And there's nothing wrong with that.

That's how God created it. Fathers should be involved, not saying they shouldn't. But women have a unique role and they spend a lot of time, especially in the early formative years with their children.

It's a beautiful thing. But yeah, so the normative from creation, what we normally see is men taking leadership roles.

And traditional gender roles preceded the fall. I just referenced 1 Corinthians 11, but 1

Timothy 2 says the same exact thing. It says, Paul references creation for women keeping silent in church and not exercising authority over men.

He says, it's because of creative creation norms that God has set up. So this isn't a result of the fall.

And the rule in scripture, as I've said, is that men take the lead. Apostles were men.

Prophets with a lasting ministry were men. Patriarchs were men. All the covenant receivers were men.

The Davidic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Noahic covenant, so forth. Kings were men. Pastors are men.

We don't see women in these roles. And a basic rule of hermeneutics is to interpret the unclear by the clear.

If you have an outlier, if you have something that doesn't seem to fit in a larger context, you don't take that and then say, well, this is the new rule, then

I guess we can just permit it anywhere. You ask yourself why. Why is there a

Deborah? What led to that? And then you figure it out. You don't just overturn the assumption that in all the thousands of years in which scripture was written was the assumed norm.

That is absolutely foolish. And man, if we applied that in other areas, if we just interpreted things that way, then we'd have chaos.

If we just took every exception to something and then made that the rule. And so that is not the way to approach scripture or interpret it.

So that is my brief response to the egalitarians who have sent me some nice messages and comments and then some not so nice comments as well,

I'm sure. I haven't read all of them, but I just wanted to put that out there to help you guys. Just get even to just get your mind going because I'm sure these discussions are going to continue.

Now, I'd like to give you a preview of coming attractions, things I'd like to talk about. And with your help and support on Patreon, I have the time to address some of these things and I really appreciate it.

And I should say, before I even talk about this, I am going to be announcing a promotion this month.

You're gonna get a free book. I'm gonna announce it probably in my next podcast. If you become a patron of mine at Patreon, I believe it's .com

slash worldview conversation. And you can be a patron of any amount.

You could even contribute a dollar a month if you'd like, and you get a free book this month alone. So just in time for the holidays, and I will be announcing more on that later.

But I would like to comment on this next time we do a podcast.

This is concerning, and I wasn't gonna say a thing about it, but it's become national news and it's the church who has released to the press.

Basically, the long and short of it is they believe, the church leadership, that a big section of 19 % of their congregation is racist because they refuse to vote in this

African -American candidate, Marcus Hayes, for pastor of this mega church in Florida. And you got big evangelical leaders saying, well, there's a problem in Florida, they're racist, or the

Southern Baptist Convention has a racism problem. And here's the thing, I haven't seen any evidence of racism anywhere.

And I've emailed the church, and I'm waiting to hear back to see if, is there any evidence that anyone was like saying things against this person because of the color of their skin?

Or is this just kind of like the Matthew Hall style in racism where they didn't agree with this guy's progressive policies because he said things positive about Black Lives Matter and Democratic candidates and those kinds of things?

It seems to me that's probably the issue. I have a bit of a surprise regarding this topic.

And I'm gonna wait a few days though, and I wanna see this story develop, but just stay tuned for that.

Also, I'd like to at some point, if it's possible, talk about this album by Kanye West.

And not just the album, but kind of what's going on with Kanye West. I've waited a while, I know there's been a lot of commentary on this, but I think

I have some unique things to say about this. I have listened to it. And this is the

AND Movement, which is the broadening of the pro -life movement to include all the social justice issues the

Democratic Party is fond of. And there's some things I'm gonna be announcing about this that you may not know.

And I'd like to talk at some point about Al Mueller. He's, as I said last time, before he announced it,

I guess, or was nominated on Twitter. I guess that's where we go to nominate people. I had said that Al Mueller was running for president of the

SBC, and he is. And most of the folks that I've seen are very positive, but there's some on both the conservative side and the liberal side who are concerned about it for various reasons.

And hopefully at some point we'll get to talk about that. So I wanted to give you that preview of some of the things that are happening that I wanna talk about, and I'm sure more things will come up in the next week.