AD and Ruslan KD Sharpen Some Iron (Or Something Like That)

All right. I think we're live. If someone from the comments could let us know, because I don't use this platform myself ever. Let's give it a second here. Are we live? I think we're live. It's almost as exciting as Pacquiao versus Mayweather.

Yeah, right. Yeah, right.

All right, we're live. We're live. All right, cool. So... AD, we should have charged for this, man. Yeah, yeah, next time. We could have done a pay-per-view and charged for this and probably made some money or gave some money away for charity.

Next time, let's do that.

That's right, that's right. I like that, I like that. Well, actually, let me do this. So, I think that between the two of us, you're the one who doesn't need the introduction, but since it's my audience here and you were so gracious to come on, why don't you introduce yourself?

I know you're a YouTuber, but from what I understand, you do a bunch of stuff. So why don't you let everybody know?

Yeah, so my name is Ruslan, for those folks who don't know. I was born in the former Soviet Union in the 80s, and I came out to America as a refugee in the early 90s. I grew up in San Diego. My mom and dad split, didn't have the best upbringing, got arrested at the age of 11, just being a complete derelict and knucklehead.

And all along the way, God kind of kept showing himself to me through people witnessing, sharing the gospel with me, people from the black church, people from the seeker-friendly church, people from the reformed community, people from every pocket.

And it took me a while to surrender my life to Jesus. It wasn't one of those instantaneous, I heard the gospel the first time. I had a lot of hostility to God. And I was going to kind of like a seeker church with a girl, it's always a girl.

And if I wanted to hang out with her on Sunday, I had to go to church. And I kept hearing his gospel, and it just so happened my manager at Pizza Hut was a Christian, and the head delivery driver was a Christian, and they hit me to stuff like Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell, and The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.

And I stopped dating this Christian girl, started dating a Jehovah's Witness girl. And I really had to sort this idea of who Jesus is out to fully surrender my life. That was really the last doctrine that I kind of had to surrender to, man.

And so I surrendered my life to Jesus. The end of my, I want to say the end of my sophomore year, junior year, somewhere in there in high school, started doing stuff around the school, Christian club, Athletes in Action.

And I kept ministering, met my wife in high school. We started dating a year after I got out. She was a year younger than me. I was been dating her since 19. We dated for four years, got married, been married for 13 years.

This past July, we just celebrated 13 years. Yeah, I give myself a little hand clap. And we have two kids. I, Levi's six, Zoe is four months tomorrow. Yeah, she's four months tomorrow. So yeah, dad, husband.

I worked at my church for a few years. I worked with adults with developmental disabilities. 2015, I transitioned into full-time music. And that was kind of like the bread and butter for a couple of years.

And then I'd say within the last eight, nine months, YouTube kind of started taking off and kind of being the main thing. And now I'm here with AD. How do you say your last name, AD?

It's Robles, like as if it was a Z. Robles, got it, okay. And your title is hilarious.

It's hilarious right now. Should I put the Christian wokest, Wokenovia? That's up to you, man.

Well, on the live show that I do with my co-host, Matt Williams, I always put weird stuff down there, but I put Christian Nationalist down there a few times, which I thought was good. I almost went with Noted Conspiracy Theorist.

That's the one people like. That would have been better. I think Noted Conspiracy Theorist.

Confirmed Conspiracy Theorist, I think would have worked better. AD, I don't know a whole lot about you, man. Where are you from? I'm 36, by the way, just in case people think I'm trying to lie about my age.

Rappers do that too, by the way. We lie about our age, but I don't. I'm 36. Tell me about you. I know you're from the Northeast, Connecticut, Vermont area. Ministry, Reformed, and that's about as much as I know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, before I do that, let me ask you, when rappers lie about their age, do they lie up or down? Down, down, down, down, for sure, down. No, that's like a documented thing. It's really weird, but it's changing, man.

I don't know if you saw Fred Durst perform on Twitter, and Fred Durst came out there just with the dad swag, and I think that's evolving. I think it's becoming okay to be an old head in hip hop now.

Yeah, it's so funny that you mentioned Fred Durst, and I'm not trying to dodge your very easy question to answer, but I saw a video today about Fred Durst and a video he produced for a song called Break Stuff.

It's a very aggressive song, and they were giving him a lot of props because he had a ton of cameos in it, and this is a song from the 90s, I think, either early 2000s or 90s, but every cameo was still relevant today as the rappers, and it was just amazing.

It was 100 ratio. You would think that'd be impossible to get people in your video at the time that are still relevant 20 years later. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that. All right, cool.

So yeah, I'm 38, and I grew up in a Christian household, and I wish I could say that I was arrested when I was 11 because that would make me look a lot better, but I was arrested when I was an adult because I lived like a pagan.

I was partying crazy, all that kind of stuff. I never really believed in Christ or the gospel or anything like that. I have two siblings who both were way more involved in the church, and they never walked away from the faith as they were a kid, but I did.

And so I graduated college, took a job in New York City, and was making a ton of money, way too much money for someone my age to be making, and I started my job right before the Great Recession hit in 2008, so I was living this fast life.

Then the Great Recession hit, and my income took a huge hit almost overnight, but I was still partying like crazy, so I went into a ton of debt, and just eventually came to the end of myself. It's basically the prodigal son.

I was doing all kinds of stuff. So eventually I came to the end of myself and visited my father one Christmas, and his pastor was going through a Tim Keller book. Well, he was preaching through the Bible, I'll give him credit, but he was using a Tim, he wasn't preaching the Tim Keller book, but he was using a Tim Keller book.

And I just heard the gospel really for the first time at that point. I was that prodigal son. I was the guy who was squandering everything that God gave me, and that's kinda, I'm like you, I didn't have a moment where I kinda came to Christ, but then I kinda just came to Christ at that point.

And so.

So what kind of church family, like what's the, is it like denomination or secret family?

Sure, sure. Well, growing up, we were in the Methodist church and then an evangelical free church, but we weren't really convictionally either of those things. It was just like local churches.

That we liked with friends. And did you hear the gospel as a child? Like, would you say the gospel was preached as a child or like you literally never heard the gospel until you became an adult? Great question, great question.

I think I had heard it. The United Methodist church I was at, so it's slightly more questionable. I don't remember though, cause I was pretty young, but we definitely heard the gospel of the churches we were at when I was younger, for sure.

Got it. So when I say I didn't hear it,.

I didn't hear it. You know what I mean? I grew up Armenian Orthodox and I did not hear it cause the services were in Armenian. Right, right. It was, you know, it was Eastern Orthodox vibes. And, but I remember when I was getting in trouble, the, we called him the Terhair, our priest sat me down and like shared the gospel with me.

And I remember being like, no, like I rejected that at a very, very early age because of the church trauma and just wanting to be a knucklehead. It was a social thing. We had this thing called ACU, Armenian Christian Youth Organization, and we would go on trips and play sports.

And so that was like my connection to the Armenian church and then not Armenian, Armenian. Don't want you to think I'm a, you know, a heretic. And then we, so when I, then as like 15, 16 started hearing it, it would take, man, it took probably 20 times for me to hear the gospel and be softened to it.

It took a lot. And I'm glad I did. So you came to faith as an adult, 20s. And then when did you kind of get into ministry?

Yeah, definitely. So when I moved to Vermont, it was to do ministry. So I had been going to a church for a few years in New York and, you know, people kept telling me, including my pastor, you know, I think God has a calling for you, this or that.

And so I just took a shot. I actually, I quit my job, you know, and took a pastoral residency in Vermont and my wife is from Vermont. So that's kind of the connection to Vermont. And I did that. And it turns out that the pastor I was sitting under had decided to actually leave that church pretty much right away.

As soon as I got there. So I worked with him for like three or four months and then the church asked me to stay and preach there, which I did for about a year while they looked for a new pastor. And then I planted a church through that church, which was a non-denominational kind of local congregational church, which I pastored with another guy for, man, I don't know the exact number, but probably two or three years, I would say.

And then unfortunately that church plant did not survive. And then I moved to New Hampshire and that's where I'm at right now. Got it. So did you go to college? What was your like line of work? What did you do for work and stuff like that?

So I didn't go to college for anything like theology related or anything like that, but I went to college for government and politics, which the only reason I did that is because I didn't know what I wanted to do and it sounded easy.

Well, that makes sense.

That's actually helpful. It makes sense to kind of better, and you were, I'm assuming always kind of more, is it fair to call you conservative, conservative Republican leaning?

Yeah, no, that's fair. I would say that. So, you know, not always actually I was, well, you know, when I was in college, I dabbled with a little bit of that rage against the machine type stuff, you know what I mean?

Like that kind of anarchy sort of socialist type stuff, but quickly abandoned that, and then I became a libertarian for a long time, I would say a pretty long time. And actually what's funny is I was reading a lot of Christian, like people that took the law of God seriously, the Presbyterians, through my libertarianism.

There's actually a website called luerockwell .com that this guy Gary North writes for often. He's this Presbyterian, this hardcore law of God kind of Presbyterian. I used to read his stuff and loved it as a libertarian before I was a Christian.

And then when I became a Christian, I found out that this guy is a Christian that I used to love and read all the time. But I abandoned libertarianism because even though there was a lot of overlap, I couldn't hold onto it if I was taking the law of God seriously.

So I wasn't always conservative-ish, but along those lines, more freedom, less government, that kind of thing. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. All right, cool. So let's jump in here. My first question I think might be the most important.

Why aren't you on Gab yet? I don't even know what that is. Is that the new parlor? Is that the new parlor? It's like the new parlor, how dare you, sir? But it's a social media site. It's a social media.

I don't know. Should I really be on it? You're trolling me, right? I don't know if you're being serious or not. Well, I really like it, but I didn't expect you to be on it. So sort of trolling a little bit.

Let me just say, AD, I've, there's been a few of your videos that I've watched. I think I saw a video of yours to responding to the Phil Vischer video. Yeah, yeah. And I thought, and I don't know if you saw my comment.

I saw that, I think about a year ago, and I was just looking up like responses to it. And I saw your video and you were like, let me know if you guys want me to do a part two of it. And I responded like, this was good.

I'd love to see a part two. And then I, so just, I just say that to say, I think you've said some good things that's definitely made me think over the years. And that was one of them. That was my first introduction to you.

So I hadn't, I saw that, and I hadn't seen anything else until recently. Okay, cool.

Well, I appreciate you telling me that. I'm glad you found some of that helpful. Yeah, no, so actually a lot of people have kind of pointed me your way over the years. And you have a pretty big following, obviously, and a lot of people really like you.

Do you know why people have pointed, I'm just curious, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to cut you off.

Why people have pointed to you? Well, so most of the ones that I remember, and this could be just that I remember these, is that they wanted me to respond to something you had done, or analyze an interview or something like that.

A lot of people, when you had Eric Mason on,.

A lot of people wanted me to respond to that. So this is recently with the Eric Mason stuff?

Yeah, much more recently than I remember, but it could be that more people said it in the past, I just didn't pick up on it. And no offense to you, my circles are different than yours. I'm not big on hip hop, so I just didn't know who you were, you know what I mean?

But a lot of people really do like you, and I went through some of my old comments, and people wanted me to respond to some of your stuff. So yeah, I probably just missed your comment,.

So sorry about that. It's all good, your channel's booming, bro, and clearly you have an audience that you speak to, that values what you're doing. So I could imagine, I mean, it's helpful comments, I'm sure, as you're experiencing the influx.

It's a channel where they could be overwhelming.

Yeah, and I think people understand, it's not my full-time gig, so anyway, whatever. So I sent you a list of some of the things that I wanted to talk about, and I'm definitely glad to cover most or all of them, or anything else that you'd like to as well.

But what I was hoping to start was one of your favorite quotations, at least I think it is, is this Augustine quotation. It's actually not an Augustine quotation.

People keep telling me that, I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, it's not an Augustine quotation. So it's been attributed, falsely attributed to Augustine through history, and then I think it was post-Reformation in the middle of a bunch of roaring happening within the, I believe within the Protestant Reformation.

And I dug it up a while ago, and so I remember, I remember learning that, I would say a couple weeks ago, after the Marcus Pittman interview, yes. And I'm trying to pull up your list of stuff that we're gonna go over, so forgive me.

Yeah, that's fine, and I'll just wait for you to do that. But yeah, so I wanted to ask about that, because whoever said it, I kind of wanna agree with it when I hear it. But what I was wondering was, you can quote it, because I don't have it memorized, but how do you determine the difference between the essentials, the non-essentials, like what's your, how do you do that?

Yeah, well, let's get the quote right first before we unpack that. So I believe it's in unity, essentials in unity in the essentials, unity in the essentials, what is the quote? In essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity.

And it still comes up as Augustine, which is really, which is really funny. I don't know, just say it's Augustine, I'm cool with it. Yeah, we're just going with Augustine. So in unity, essential, so what, yeah, but the question is, what do I think the essentials of the Christian faith is?

Like what is the, what's the doctrine? Yeah, like how do you determine which is which? Like, you know, liberty in the non-essentials, that's a pretty important thing, because that's a lot, a lot of what you talk about is having to do with some of that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great question. And just, again, background for me, get safe, seek a friendly church,.

Start going to a church plant, been at the same church for 17 years. Our church has been everything, dude. We've been super charismatic, tongues, flags, to super duper reformed. One of our pastors rewrote, like literally, kind of low-key, kind of plagiarized Driscoll's doctrine book and we went through that thing.

Which was probably plagiarized as well. Which was, and so we go through this whole thing and I signed this covenant. And so I've been all across the spectrum, like all across the theological spectrum.

I would say I've never went to the deep end of like progressive Christianity, where you just start questioning of Jesus rose and that kind of stuff. But across the spectrum theologically, I've been all over the place.

So to me, the essentials, and I think most, I feel like most people, if we're talking Sean McDowell, if we're talking, right, like respected apologists, I think the essentials to me would be, what does scripture clear on in places like 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Ephesians chapter two?

What are the early creeds? The Nacian Creed, the Apostles Creed. And 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I'm sure as you know, was one of the earliest creeds. Paul said, as I've heard this, I've passed this down to you.

So people think it's a, you know, a lot of things in 1 Corinthians they think Paul made up, but they really, he's passing down stuff or he's quoting stuff. And so that's the first creed. So I would say the creeds in the Bible, and then I would say the early church father creeds.

Specifically I could point to probably the Nacian Creed, the Apostles Creed. So I think on those things, I would say, hey, these are the essential doctrines. If we're talking Jesus, the Godhead, Jesus is God and man, fully God, fully man.

Jesus came, lived a perfect life, rose literally bodily, it wasn't a metaphor, it wasn't an idea, it wasn't to paint any kind of image, right, the virgin birth, the scriptures are the inspired word of God.

Jesus is the only way, salvation by grace through faith, so on and so forth. So I would say, I think we all kind of know what those essentials of the faith are. And so when I say essentials and unity, that means, hey man, if you are, I'm assuming Presbyterian reformed, if somebody is Armenian, if somebody is charismatic, if somebody is whatever, and I'll even say Ethiopian Orthodox, right?

Like I'll even say some folks outside of the Protestant tradition. I say we can have unity in the essentials because my Ethiopian Orthodox brothers and sisters, my Armenian Orthodox brothers and sisters, even Catholics watch my channel, we could have unity in those essentials and then in the non-essentials, we could have liberty and we could say, man, dude, tell me about the theomany, like I'm studying the theomany after talking to Marcus Pitman and the post-war position, I like the idea of the post-war, like I wanna learn, I don't have a firm eschatological position because again, I've been everything, when I got saved, it was under the rapture, left behind series, probably a little bit before you came to faith, the left behind, that stuff.

So I don't have like a firm position on that, I don't, so I have liberty in the essentials, I have some ideas, but I'm certain on the essentials, I'm certain Jesus literally rose from the grave, that is not up for debate, progressive Christian starts coloring outside the lines, I say, whoa, that's not Christianity anymore and I have done that in certain circles where I'm talking to a progressive Christian and all of a sudden they start, what, is it resurrection, is it a metaphor?

Nah, bro, it's literal, that really happened, we believe that, that's off the table. So that's what I mean by in the essentials, unity and non-essentials, liberty and all things charity.

Right, right, okay, cool, no, that's fine and I would tend to agree with that. So when you're talking about the liberty piece though, because you've often used this quotation in context where maybe you think someone's being too critical or maybe too aggressive, maybe some of, I don't know how many of my videos you watch, probably not that many, but sometimes I can be known to sort of draw some pretty stark lines, I've said some things about certain people that people think are pretty aggressive and it seems to me that sometimes you bring up this liberty thing in context like that.

Do you know what I'm trying to say?

Can you rephrase the question? Like, I think I'm following, I think I'm tracking. Sure, sure, what I'm trying to say is,.

So when you talk about liberty, what does that actually look like, liberty in the essentials? Like, what do you You mean unity in the essentials, liberty in the non-essentials. I'm sorry, liberty in the non-essentials, what does that liberty look like?

Does that mean, what does it mean?

So you hold a, I'm assuming you hold to the five points of Calvinist, Calvin, five points of Calvin? Yeah, yeah, I do. You hold to the five, okay. I don't. I don't think you're immature. I don't think you are radical.

I don't think you have a shallow faith. I don't think, right? I don't look at you as less than because we disagree on one of the points of Calvin. I don't like limited atonement. I don't think you are less than if you think, if you believe in double predestination, right?

So that's what I would say, is I would say, I don't, bro, I don't do that. If somebody says, hey, you know, tongues, they're all about tongues. They're all about this, right? I'll say, okay, cool. Like, I don't think you have to speak in tongues to be saved, but if you wanna speak in tongues, man, I think there's some confines with scripture, if our scripture would describe that, and maybe your position would be different.

Maybe, I don't know if you're a cessationist or not. So that's what I would mean. Like, I could fellowship with a Calvinist, and I do, by the way, in real life. Like, I have friends that are Calvinist.

I have friends that are super charismatic.

I have friends all over the spectrum. So, but, okay, that's fine. So then that makes sense. So you can have friends that are not, that are not, that are Calvinist, let's say. But certainly, you would think that as a Calvinist, I would be saying things about God that weren't true.

I'd be lying about God, right?

If you were saying things about

Yeah, since I'm a Calvinist, and you're not a Calvinist, so you think when I say Calvinist things, I'm actually telling an untruth about God. I'm lying about him, right? No, I don't, I don't. I think you have a different perspective.

On things that have been debated for thousands and thousands of years, and continue to be debated by the smartest scholars who are actually experts in this field, and went and did master, you know, so I don't think you're intentionally lying, and I don't think you're being deceptive, and I would just say, I don't know, right?

Some of these things are hard for me to get behind, double predestination. There's a French guy that came out recently talking about everything is predestined. Some of that stuff is really hard to get behind.

I would reject some of that, but I don't think you're lying on God. I would just say, man, I think that's an incomplete view that I think we won't really know until we get to heaven, and I'm not trying to make it a cop-out.

Like, I'm really not trying to give you a cop-out. I just, hey, man, I don't know. You know, limited atonement, double predestination, that stuff is tough. I'm not gonna say A .D. is a liar. He's lying on God because of a secondary, non-essential issue.

Got it.

Do you think that, let me ask you this, Ruslan. Do you think that the Bible is clear in the things that it teaches us?

I think the Bible is clear on the essentials. I think the Bible's clear on the law of God. I think the Bible is clear on a lot of things, and then I think there are things where there's disagreement on, with church history, right, with church history.

There's things that the church fathers have disagreed on. There's things in the Bible that they, Acts 15, they disagreed on what did the Gentiles act like initially, and they had to have a whole council for it.

So I think we see that in Scripture. We see that after Scripture. We see that all throughout church history, up until the Reformation, and I think we're gonna, unfortunately, continue seeing that. In America, I'm sure you probably know this, we have 40 ,000 different Protestant denominations worldwide, and in America, we have over 300 active ones.

Okay, so I don't think they're all lying on God and intentionally being deceptive. I think some of them are an error, and I think some of them not, and so I try to keep a light theology in terms of the essentials, and then on these other things, man, I'm always learning.

I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to gain knowledge.

Okay, got it, got it. So, and I'm gonna rephrase your answer. It sounds like you say that the Bible's clear on the essential doctrines, but it's unclear on the doctrines that are not essential.

The Bible is clear on what it requires someone to come to faith to Jesus on salvation. The Bible is inspired. However, there's language barriers. There's traditional barriers. There's all kinds of things that we have to work.

There's our own biases. I think that we need to work through and go look to the Greek and look at what the original Greek says. Look at these different things, right? And so, we get split hairs on any issue, AD.

There's people that think that I've taken the mark of the beast because I don't celebrate on the literal Sabbath. I think you would probably laugh at that, right? But they're firm in their convictions and they'll point you to this thing and that thing and the Catholic church changing the Sabbath, but then the word.

And when they gathered on the first day of every month, well, that word in the Greek originally is Sabbath and it's not week, right? So, we get split hairs on so many different things. So, to say that the Bible is absolutely objectively clear so that everybody that can read the Bible has perfect theology on just the Bible self-interpreting itself.

Yeah, I probably would not agree with that statement. Okay, got it.

Thank you for answering, I appreciate that. So, one of the things I noticed in your list of essentials, you didn't mention errant ideas about race or racism. Do you consider racism or racist theologies or ideas essentials or non-essentials?

So, thank you. Just because I didn't say an essential.

Doesn't mean that I don't believe something is an essential, okay? So, I think us being created in the Imago Dei is an essential. I think you have to believe that man's created with dignity, man is created in the image of God, man has value, man has worth, yes.

So, I would say, if we're looking at it through the Imago Dei, yes, I would say that's an essential doctrine. And I think that bleeds over to racism, partiality, other areas, right? Prejudice, judgment, all these different things.

Genderism or whatever the, you know, women being subservient historically and now they're kind of Jesus pulling them up and making them more equal. Yes, yes, yes. So, to answer your question, through the lens of the Imago Dei, not like objectively on the lens of racism, but through the Imago Dei, that is how we look at equality of people.

All right, great, great, excellent. By the way, if you have a question for me, you can jump right in. I have a line of questions here. If you want me to keep going, I certainly will. Yeah, I do have some questions, but I mean, I think we're flowing.

I think I'm doing okay. Yeah, no, I think we're doing good. So, let me

I think we're doing okay. Yeah, no, I think we're doing good too. So, let me tell you about a guy. There's a man who, you know, he's a pastor and he's got a, you know, a small congregation, that kind of thing.

Great preacher, very charismatic, not in the theological sense, but you know, people like him, you know, very engaging and all that kind of thing. And he's got his doctrine down. You know, he believes in the Trinity.

He's got, you know, Jesus Christ was crucified, dead and buried, rose on the third day. You know, all the essentials in that regard down, right? But he's a racist. Is that where you're going with this?

But he's a white supremacist? No, no, not at all. So, what I'm going with this is essentially, he believes in the Imago Dei, you know, and all that kind of stuff. But he regularly says things about blackness that are very suspect.

Like he attributes violence and like theft to blackness, right? He doesn't do it all the time and he teaches very well all the time, most of the time. But, you know, he'll often cite to statistics, you know, Chicago, you know, there's so many murders in DC.

I saw a statistic the other day that said that DC had more murders three to one to COVID deaths, you know, stuff like that, you know? He's great in every area. He loves his wife, loves his children. He sets up food for the poor.

He, you know, all that stuff. He also, so he says some of this stuff, but he also, he was attending the Charlottesville rally and he did hold a tiki torch, but, and he doesn't, and he said many times he doesn't agree with everything that they say, but he does agree with some of their grievances.

Could you have unity with someone like that? I think a lot of evangelicals right now do have unity with someone like that. I think that that's already here. I mean, we can play around that, but there are people already that adhere and throw out false statistics and hyper, be hyperbolic about things that aren't really the truth about an issue, right?

So I think some of that's already here. So can I have union with someone that has Yeah, so one, I think it's already here. Can I have unity with someone that has some covert racism in their heart? I can, yes, I challenge them regularly.

We have, I have people in my life that are like, ah, man, that's kind of questionable, you know, and we unpack these ideas. What I'm not saying is that they're racist and they're intentionally being racist.

I'm saying that people can have biases, have subtle biases, subconscious biases, and not know their own racial partiality, if you will. So I think that's, I think we're already dealing with some of that.

So would you disagree? Hold on, hold on. Let's back up, would you disagree? Yes.

Okay. Yeah, I would. So, but just to Why, why? Sure, I'll answer in just a second, but so just to make sure you're clear, so we do have liberty in your view to attend, you know, a rally like the Tiki Torch rally in Charlottesville and to say that blackness is, you know, this negative thing that attributes, you know, it's attributable to violent tendencies and stealing.

We have the liberty to do that kind of thing in your view, to believe those and teach those things.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying historically the church has, okay, if we're going to be honest, the church has. And I'm saying, and I think there's questionable things happening right now with something as simple as the church getting behind the birder conspiracy with Barack Obama, right?

Like that was a flat out lie and the church perpetuated that lie. A lot of Christians did, right? Which, and I would say there was some racial undertones there and that was not cool. That was not okay.

That was not truthful. That was not honorable. That wasn't okay. And so I think that's already happened. Do we dismiss all those people as heretics? Do we dismiss all those people as a, no, I have to deal with these people.

These people are in my church. These people are everywhere. I think we, so how do we have these conversations is the question, not do I have fellowship? Are they going to be in my personal circle? Probably not.

Are they going to go to a church that's around here? Yeah, I talk to people regularly about this kind of stuff, AD.

Well, I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to them, but you said that Christians don't have the liberty to believe and teach those things, but yet you would have fellowship with them. So they actually do have the liberty in your view, even if you think they're wrong.

Because I think you're wrong on not being a Calvinist, but I agree, we have unity in the essentials. You don't have to be a Calvinist to be my friend or to be at my church, right? But so I guess that's what I'm asking.

Like, so you're saying we actually do have the liberty to be in error on some of that stuff. People are in error. I'm not saying that's a good liberty. People already are there.