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#NoDespair2020
Right, I'm going to give you my take on what's happening right now and probably going to happen over the next year or so, and this is obviously always dangerous to do because I'm not perfect, I don't have the mind of God, and so my predictions, you know, they're not necessarily going to be infallible.
However, I've often criticized Gospel Coalition for refusing to speak prophetically, refusing to deal in the here and now, and to project, you know, what potentially is going to happen given what we're doing right now in the future.
They're typically only looking at the past. We'll talk big and bad about the KKK, even though the KKK has been a joke for years. I mean, that fight is already over. It used to be a real fight, it's no longer a fight.
Most people know of the KKK only through watching Jerry Springer episodes. They're obviously a meme. And so here's my prediction, obviously tentative, but I don't think that Gospel Coalition and Big Eva types are going to repent of the false doctrines that they've been promoting in their pages and in their Twitter feeds and all that kind of stuff, but what I do think they're going to do is rebrand in order to present the same stuff in a way that is more palatable for conservatives.
Yeah, I'll tell you why I think that in just a minute, but before I do, I did want to talk about this article. And this is an article that's in a series of articles. Every other week or so we'll get something like this from a Big Eva source where they talk about online debating and Twitter and social media being the enemy of the people and it's just so evil and stuff like that.
And everybody sees this for what it is. This is their retreat. They failed at online media. They get ratioed every single tweet, every single time they post something even a little bit controversial. The only engagement that they get is engagement that's like, yeah, that's wrong and you got to stop doing this and here's the reasons why you got to stop doing it.
Also memes and jokes and things like that. I mean, we've been so effective at memeing on the opposition in this case that we've rendered so much of what they put forward as a complete joke at this point.
People don't take it seriously. I just put out a music video with Dr. Eric Mason's TED talk on reparations. It's a joke. I mean, it's just like, it's dead on arrival at this point, you know, that kind of thing.
And so, of course, because they're losing so terribly at social media, they want to make it seem like social media is the devil. Now, this article that they put out on their blog is actually a decent article.
I don't want to throw any shade this guy's way. There's some things that I'd want to quibble with in the article, but overall there's a lot of really good advice there. But if you look at on the on the screen right now, they tweeted out this article and they wrote this.
I want to quote what they wrote in the tweet. They said, In the age of scorched-earth online debates, we'd do well to recover the quiet effective strength of civility. Now, if you search this sentence in the article, you will not find it in the article, because I don't know if the author wrote it or not, but it's not in the article.
Which is weird that they would frame it this way. They're almost trying to pit online interactions against civility, and that's not something that is legitimate in any way. In fact, I don't think even the article really tries to make that case very aggressively.
So why are they putting this forward? Well, I think Gospel Coalition is putting this forward because it goes along with their narrative that social media is of the devil. Primarily they say that because they lose so poorly, they're so epically at social media and stuff like that.
But anyway, this article makes the case for like, you know, having real deep human interactions and that's how you have civility. But when you have online interactions or interactions with media personalities and stuff like that, there's no depth to your relationship.
And so it's very easy to not be civil, and that's a big bad thing. Which is weird that Gospel Coalition wants to say, okay, we're gonna pit this against online interactions, because it really just assumes that people online are like this one-dimensional force that has no personal interactions in their life.
They don't care about their church, they're not involved in that kind of stuff, and so they're just uncivil because they're just indulging in online fantasies all day. And the reality is that pretty much everyone that I know that interacts in these issues online that is very serious about the social justice false doctrines that Gospel Coalition and others put out, pretty much to the man, they're all churchmen, and they all have pastors that they submit to, and they all have friends and family that they talk to and work with and stuff like that.
And so I just want you to beware of Gospel Coalition presenting this as like a everyone's one-dimensional, that's just not the case at all. If you have a problem with me, you can call me. People have called me before, I give out my number fairly freely, and you can talk to me and we can have a conversation.
If you can't solve your issue with me, I'll bring my pastor involved. I don't hide that kind of stuff. I'm a churchman, and so of course I would want to bring my pastor involved in any situation that we couldn't resolve ourselves.
And this is the thing, it's not just me, this is not me defending myself. All of us are like this, and in fact many of us have our church details on our Twitter feeds and our social media and stuff like that.
We're not hiding this kind of stuff. It's just such a weird way to go about this. But I did want to talk about a little piece of this article, because again I thought this article was really good, but it's just interesting coming from Gospel Coalition.
So here's what this says. It says, at the end of the article it says, American culture is in crisis. Contrary to the best-selling narratives, the crisis isn't primarily about 50 of the country that aren't sufficiently pro-science, nor is it primarily about the 10 of the country that are elitist and authoritarian.
The crisis is that our public square is manufacturing cultural resentments far more efficiently than its building character. What we lack in ideas we compensate for in enemies. As one wise friend of mine summarized, the spirit of this age is, I don't know who I am, but I know who I am not.
There's some truth to that, no question about it, but I think the blame is being put in the wrong space, because the author here seems to be indicating that it's our public square that's manufacturing these resentments.
And I think that contradicts what the Bible says about the resentments that you have inside of you. The public square didn't do that. Twitter didn't do that. Facebook didn't do that. YouTube videos didn't do that.
That's your problem. You need to deal with it. That's your sin. Why do you fight? Well James tells us why we fight. We desire, but we don't have. That's why we murder. That's why we fight. That's why we steal.
That's why we sin. We sin because we have sinful desires. We have things within us that cause us to do all kinds of sinful things. The problem is us. It's not the public square. It's not the medium of our communication.
I see people all the time lamenting that people don't read anymore. And it's like, well, whether you read or not, whether you read a lot or watch a lot of television or read magazines or read books or watch YouTube videos or tweet or whatever it is that you do, the medium isn't causing the problem.
You're the problem. I'm the problem. If I have a sin in my life, if I lie about somebody or something like that, that's my problem. You see what I'm saying? We have to look inside of us and realize that it's our sinful desires that cause us to do sins.
And so it's very easy to blame talking heads online. It's very easy to blame the public square or the new social digital public square and stuff like that. That's that's too easy. That's not the answer because people resented each other before the Internet existed.
People lied about each other before the Internet existed. Here's what I think part of the problem is, my friends, because we have these guilds, right? We have these groups and we're not willing sometimes to allow people to criticize that guild.
We all have them. There's certain things that I won't allow you to criticize and we all have to deal with that because the thing is, if you don't allow someone from the outside to criticize you, then it's very sometimes it's very difficult to see your own problems and to see your own sins, which is why whoever tries to call me out or say that I've done something wrong or something like that, I try to offer opportunities for them to explain themselves directly.
Like I said, I give my number out freely and I hear people out. You could ask any number of people, probably had at this point 20, 30 conversations with people that had a problem with something I said.
And I've been willing to spend a lot of time at this point. I've probably spent many, many hours. I don't even know how to even think about it, how many hours I've spent fielding criticisms for myself for myself.
And it's not always easy. There are some times I just won't do it. But the thing is, we have to look at that. We have to look at what are the things that we protect in such a way that's inappropriate.
And one of the things that this article does well is it talks about the idea of not answering people when they ask you legitimate questions. It's like saying, well, your tone is too bad, so I'm not going to answer you.
It's like the thing is, though, that this is printed in the Gospel Coalition without a sense of irony. This is what the Gospel Coalition does all the time. They say, well, I'm not going to respond because your tone is too bad.
And it's like you have no intention of responding to me regardless. I just did a video yesterday about Kirk Kennedy. And people often criticize how aggressive my tone is at times and stuff like that, which I always think is a little bit not deserved because, yes, I can get aggressive.
But like I'd say half of my videos are very calm and very measured and reasonable. But anyway, so I did a video where I was very reasonable and calm and gentle and all of that kind of stuff, and Kurt decided to get online to say how ridiculous it was that I was being reasonable and generous with my tone.
So it's like, Kurt has no intention of actually giving me a fair shake. That's fine. I don't care if people give me a fair shake or not, because I'm doing what I think is right, I'm saying what I think is the truth, and God will judge between us.
But the thing is, there are some people out there that just they use their tone as an excuse, and Gospel Coalition is notorious for that. I've got receipts for days on this one. And the thing is, I don't want to just be throwing stones, because I understand that there are aspects of that in myself that I clearly see, and I try to do what I can, knowing that I have the tendency to kind of dismiss people because of their tone, knowing I have that tendency.
I've talked about this on my channel so many times. I have to sometimes very intentionally say, okay, I know I don't agree with this person. That's probably why I'm reading something into their tone that might be there or it might not be, so let me look at the actual words.
Let me see what they're actually saying, and that's how I'll approach this. Like, I have to do that. It's very difficult sometimes to do that, but you have to do it. Gospel Coalition, listen, you can rebrand all you want, but until you fix that, nothing's gonna change.
Nothing's gonna change. I've seen this whole thing coming, where they're kind of disengaging from social media and stuff like that, and they're starting to start to platform people that are against critical theory as a technical term and like in the theoretical and in the academy, in the academic sense, critical theory.
They're starting to platform some of those people. They're starting to talk to some of those people. In fact, I was on a podcast, the episode's not launched yet, where Jonathan Lehman engaged two brothers that seem to come out very strong against critical theory, and Neil Shenvey, again, he's platformed by a lot of Big Eva.
He seems to come across very strong against critical theory, but there's some things that these guys will not do. They won't apply it to the everyday life, and so that's why I think Big Eva is trying to rebrand here.
In fact, I talked to someone. I saw this going on. I saw a lot of Big Eva people coming out hard against critical theory, and I'm praising that because I like that. I think that's a good start. Praise God, but there's a lot more required.
I was talking to someone, and he said, you know what, AD, this guy knows what's going on in Big Eva. He's connected, and I'm not gonna name him because I want him to stay connected. You know what I'm saying?
He said, you know what's going on here, AD? They're rebranding. They're rebranding. They know how much damage they've done to their brand. They know that soft-pedaling voting for these satanic Democrats, how much that's cost them.
That's cost them a lot, and so they have to rebrand because otherwise, they know that their platforms are a lost cause. They're diminishing. How much influence they have is diminishing, and so they're rebranding, AD.
They have to because they've drug their names through the mud. That makes a lot of sense to me. That makes a lot of sense to me, but Gospel Coalition, here's the reality. There will be no ceasefire here.
There will be no ceasefire here. You cannot expect us to just throw this down the memory hole and forget it ever happened. We're not going to forget it ever happened. What you need to do is to actually repent.
A rebrand's not going to do it. Nobody's going to be fooled by a rebrand. You need to repent, and as part of your repentance, you need to stop teaching the false doctrines that you've been pushing. You need to stop with this milquetoast, limp-wristed approach to all of today's battles, and you need to join the fight against these battles because the thing is, a lot of you guys are really Christians.
You're on the right side of this. You're on God's side. Join the fight, and you don't have to join the fight exactly the way I do, but you have to join the fight. You have to fight today's battles, and you have to stop being so cowardly that you'll come out big and bad against the KKK, but won't come out strong against the Democratic Party, which is way worse, way worse, both in body count and in ideology.
And so that's what we need from you. We need actual repentance. A rebrand isn't going to cut it, and we are too, we're too smart now. We've seen too much. We've seen too much Gospel Coalition. We've seen too much Big Eva.
We're not going to be fooled by your rebranding anymore. It's just not going to work. And while I can praise people that are coming out against critical theory and wokeness and all this kind of stuff, I will praise that because it's praiseworthy, but I'm not going to be fooled by halfway measures.
All of you guys that are coming out strong against critical theory right now and wokeness, please understand I'm on your side, and I'll help you out any way I can, and I'll support you any way I can, and I'll defend you if it's the right thing to do.
But one thing I will not accept is halfway measures. None of us will accept halfway measures. Your boys have done too much damage to just let this go through the memory hole. There's going to be no, listen, there's no ceasefire until you actually repent.
A rebrand is just not going to cut it. I think I've said enough. Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.