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Jon reviews news from the past week for Christian Conservatives.
We're now live on the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We have a lot to talk about today. I'm gonna try to do it as quickly as I possibly can. I hope you are all in the Christmas spirit.
It is the weekend before Christmas. I know what that means for many of you. You are running out, trying to shop for presents and for food, like my wife is right now, at least for food. We just found out we're gonna have more people than we expected on Christmas, which is, of course, a wonderful blessing.
We like being able to be a place that can host family gatherings at times. And Christmas, to me, is probably the most important family gatherings. And I know some of you, you make the case for 4th of July.
You make the case for Thanksgiving. I think it'll always be Christmas. Some of you will make the case even for Easter, Resurrection Sunday. I think it's Christmas. I don't know if it's, I don't know what it is.
There's something about Christmas where everyone comes together. Well, most of us. Society does something. And I know even sitting in Dunkin' Donuts, because I'm addicted, it's bad. I love their refreshers.
So I'm sitting in Dunkin' Donuts drinking a refresher. Blueberry Breeze with green tea, by the way, best combination, I've tried them all. And I'm sitting there to get awake. That's like my office away from home because I share an office with my daughter.
It's like her bedroom. I have to work in shifts here. So I'll go out. And I'm sitting there. And every Christmas song that comes on, they have like, what, five, six they play. And then they repeat them.
And most of them are terrible. I think there's one that's religious, which is probably Carol of the Bells, overtly so. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, man, I don't care for all these carols. They're not even carols.
They're just Christmas time or wintertime songs. But at the same time, I still hear about Jesus.
At the same time,.
There's still something different about it that I just think hearkens back to tradition, to reflect on who we actually are as a people. There's something rooted and just wonderful about it. And I'll always like Christmas, besides the fact that we were celebrating the incarnation, but the surrounding cultural festivities, I just love.
So I'm looking forward to it. I hope you are too. And some of you are probably listening as you're doing that shopping. So be careful. Do not drive too fast. I know you've got to get there. Don't run over anyone in the store.
Be careful. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. I'm sure I'll be able to do at least one more podcast before then. But, and in fact, I actually recorded a few this morning, so I'll at least be able to drop those.
But in case things get too chaotic, I just want you to hear me say that. So Merry Christmas. I do have a lot to share with you today. And I'm trying to even think how to strategically to do this. We're going to go from local, or I should say evangelical specific news, to more global Christian news, to national political news.
I think that's how we're going to frame it. And at the end, I'll talk about some recent Trump administration victories. And I want to remind you about that. I hear a lot of negativity about Donald Trump and the Trump administration.
There's always things to be negative about, but I think we all, we have to remember too, that there's some good things happening. And we could have been on a different timeline where Kamala Harris was the president, and we would be in a very different scenario right now.
Remember that, please remember that. There are some good things for Christians to celebrate, and I'll go over some of those, even as I talk about some corporate things that I'm not too happy about. Chick-fil-A, Angel Studios.
I mean, I'm not a big Angel Studios guy, but still I thought these were more solid places than I guess they are perhaps. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about TPUSA. Of course, that's what's stealing all the headlines on X right now.
And man, people are cranked up about it. So I don't think I'm gonna be able to maybe satisfy everyone because of the time constraints, and there's just so much to talk about. But I will try to give you some of my opinion and just some guidance on what I think is happening and what we should be thinking and how we should be going about the fracturing that's right in front of us.
I don't like being vindicated on this, obviously. And there's a lot of people that feel vindicated. I was reflecting on this. There's people who think because two years ago they were calling out the quote-unquote woke right that they feel like they're vindicated, that that was the foreshadowing of what's happening right now with the fracturing and the movement.
There's people who think that they're maybe very reconstructionist or theonomist who just thought, well, this is what happens when you don't have a standard. And they feel justified that they were prophetic.
I think there's people who are more older, traditional or paleo-conservatives where I would see myself more so who just kind of hang our head and we're like, man, this is bad, this is all bad. We're used to being on the losing end of a lot of things in recent years, but still wanna maintain a positive vision and a hope and a belief in the transcendent things and especially in the guidance of God.
And so we can navigate this, but we're also looking at it like, yeah, I mean, this mirrors fights that have been there for a long time. It's just that maybe they're more intense now. And so I'll talk about that.
I actually do think that is true. A lot of these fractures were already there. They're just intensified. And of course, there's all sorts of other ways to look at it, but maybe I'll survey those as we go through it.
Like how would you look at what happened last night with Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson and the meeting earlier this week between Erica Kirk and Candace Owens and questions about all kinds of things, questions about the free market and capitalism, questions about Israeli influence and all that.
And my wife is texting me during a live stream and you guys are all important to me, but I need to figure out what this is. Okay, all right. It's making sure it's not an emergency, right? Okay, so let's start here.
Like I said, I wanna start with the local. So give you some denominational news, I suppose, and then we'll go from there. St. Andrew's Chapel votes to leave the PCA two years after joining. This is a story from Protestia.
St. Andrew's Chapel, a prominent Presbyterian church in the PC, Presbyterian Church in America, PCA. They're in Sanford, Florida. This is where R .C. Sproul was a pastor, remember that. They voted overwhelmingly to leave the denomination.
The vote was 66 -9 to 108. So that's pretty overwhelming. One of the largest PCA churches in the country with more than 1 ,100 members, St. Andrew's was formally led by R .C. Sproul. The decision to disaffiliate comes months after senior pastor Bert Parsons was suspended indefinitely from the pulpit after being found guilty of unbecoming pastoral conduct.
Now, what does that mean? By the PCA's Central Florida Presbytery. Parsons previously pled guilty to similar charges in 2019 and received admonition. Many members have criticized the disciplinary actions.
They're saying they're unfounded. It was originally thought the church would wait for Parsons' appeal of his suspension, but they ultimately proceeded with the vote. And the PCA works slow. So maybe some people got impatient, I don't know.
In addition to the changes, or charges rather, against Parsons, the church faced criticisms from the presbytery over lack of financial transparency with members. The church refused multiple requests from elders to provide them with financial statements.
Let's see, getting nowhere with the church, Doug Rissevee filed a complaint with Central Florida Presbytery, and the presbytery formed a commission and investigated and agreed with the requesting members that St. Andrew's needed to provide the budget informed requests.
Commission pointed out that the church's own bylaws pledged to provide this information to members when asked and then proceeded to educate the newly inducted church that financial transparency was central to presbyterian governance.
Despite the rebuke and instruction, they declined to comply. Now independent of the PCA, the church was not yet finalized whether it will remain unaffiliated or join another denomination. So this is just the sort of thumbnail of it.
I'm not totally familiar with the financial stuff, so I'll refrain from commenting on that. I have heard from other PCA people, ministers and so forth, who I trust that the charges against Burke Parsons are kind of silly, but you know, again, they don't go over them in this particular article.
I don't know if there's actually a link to that. Yeah, they do have a link here. Let's see what the link takes us. It goes to another Protestia article from June 12th. So earlier this year, and it says, let's see here.
The judicial commission of the Central Florida Presbytery announced that after hearing testimony from nearly 60 witnesses and conducting more than 45 hours, wow, of trial proceedings resulting in two full days of deliferation, they unanimously found him guilty.
This is what they found him guilty of. Okay, ready? Being harsh, ungentle, and unkind to those under his care, not being a humble servant leader, but instead lording it over others, so being domineering, and slandering or demeaning other members.
Those are the charges. Commission voted on it. Let's see. Okay, that's it. And I think, so what I've been told is that this essentially goes back to some incident where someone was near a pond, as I understand it, on campus, and he was telling them not to swim in it or get near it, and that was the genesis of this.
So the people at St. Andrew's Chapel are not having it. Those are, I will admit, rather vague accusations. I will keep an eye on the story, see where it goes, and we will just keep an eye on it. I mean, this is kind of a loss for the PCA.
They probably could have used a congregation like St. Andrew's in the denomination that has some prominence and clout. Yeah, it's sad. I don't know if this signals something, and I've been thinking about this, whether or not the era of denominations is over.
I don't know.
I go back and forth on this, because you need mechanisms for verifying that leaders have actually attained a level of competence, and you need some way to deal out rewards and punishments, even if it's unofficially, like in an autonomous church network like the SBC.
There is kind of a need that they feel. There's also cooperative efforts for missions and education and other things. And so I don't know. There's gonna be networks. You can't really avoid that, but it seems like everything's going very decentralized.
These denominations are becoming more centralized, but as they do that, individual churches leave, and they're not interested in what the denomination necessarily has to offer. The cost-benefit analysis doesn't work in their favor.
And I'm wondering what that means for the future if that trend continues. That's certainly something I've seen in the SBC. So whether or not that's starting or is happening right now in the PCA, I don't know.
It very well could be. I think the PCA has a slower process of adjudicating things, and that does merit at least patience, and not everyone has that. And it is a frustrating thing. All right, well, let's keep going here.
We'll get to some more news stories that are local. One of them that was sent to me, this is from Marcus Pittman, actually, and I should mention, Marcus is not necessarily a party that is not invested in this.
Marcus, I think he runs, is it Lore? Lore is an organization that he runs, and it is a streaming platform for Christians. So he would be a competitor with VidAngel and Angel Studios, but Angel Studios released an interesting project.
I was not aware of this, and Marcus wrote about it, and he sent it to me, and it's Animal Farm. Now, okay, they're gonna do Animal Farm, but guess, get this, it's directed by Andy Serkis, and it's starring Seth Rogen, of all people, Seth Rogen.
Now, that was kind of weird to me. I thought Seth Rogen, he's kind of a very crass comedian, actor, if you wanna call him that. And so in response to this, Angel Studios says, and oh, and I think the other piece of this is Laverne Cox is a voice actor for it, and she is a quote-unquote trans actor, okay?
So this is Angel Studios who gave you The Chosen, The Sound of Freedom. They're giving you this, and Angel Studios issued a response to some backlash, and they said, the Angel Guild can't see a filmmaker's race.
Members vote without knowing the race or skin color of a filmmaker. Directors and creators submit their work without fear of bias. The Guild judges only the story. The Angel Guild can't see a filmmaker's gender.
Voters never see the gender of the director, writer, or producer. Filmmakers no longer need to worry about sexism blocking their shot. The vote is 100 based on the film's merit. And message, Angel Guild can't see a filmmaker's religion.
So, okay, so we're just color blind, we're religion blind, we're blind on gender and all of this. What does this mean? Filmmakers who craft stories that amplify light, stories that are true, honest, noble, just authentic, lovely, admirable, and excellent can submit to the Angel Guild without fear of bias.
Pure merit and art always wins. Okay, let me translate this to you. Pure art and merit includes stories that are directed by including actors who engage in what traditional Americans, Christians, religious people in general would find abhorrent.
That is totally within boundaries. And you're not even supposed to look at someone's religious differences. Now, the way they're framing it is that this is either a race, religion, or some kind of gender difference.
When in reality, the issue I think people are having is these particular individuals are connected to, known for, participating in, flaunting debauchery. And that would go for both the actor and Seth Rogen.
So, here's where I, this is what I see, and this is where I struggle. It's not a struggle, no. This is where I deviate from Angel Studios. I think it's perfectly fine for them to come out and say unapologetically, we're a traditional American conservative organization.
Now, I don't think they can say evangelical, or Christian, or Protestant, or any of that, because I think they got Mormons there. But what they could say is that, we're for traditional American values associated with Christianity, or something along those lines.
We have, and we're not gonna apologize for it. We are not going to accept Hollywood directors that are known for these things. We're not going to allow people who are flaunting things that God says are toi va, that are abominations, to be using our platform to market their material, even if that material is good.
There's nothing wrong with them saying that. And this is something, ultimately it's the investors in Angel Studios that are gonna have to determine what they wanna do. If they don't want to support this, if they would rather have overtly religious-themed, traditional-themed pieces, then they're gonna have to demand it.
And it's just sad because you can get, I don't think it's wrong to go to the movies or see a program that has people who did evil things, who might even be known for it, but who have contributed to good things.
I often use Chariots of Fire, the old 1980s movie. The actor who played Eric Little is a homosexual and it's a great movie. And he portrays Eric Little actually very well. And so would we just throw the whole thing away?
Well, no, I think there's value there, but this is a Hollywood studio that did this. And it's, when you have the choice, who would you prefer to hire, right? That's the thing. Who would you prefer to give the job to?
Who would you prefer to actually, you're making wholesome content. Wouldn't you want people that match in their personal lives as much as possible, that wholesome content with a wholesome life to portray it?
They're probably gonna do a better job. Not saying you can't, acting is, there's some, I don't know if deception's the word, it's acting, it's pretending. That's happening anyway. But yeah, I just think that this is a poor response because it implies that the people who are critics are essentially racist, sexist bigots of some kind.
That their problem is really a problem that they are just looking and making these divisions based on exterior things that don't matter. When it's like, no, they're looking at things that actually do matter.
They don't want their money that they're paying to the alternative to Hollywood to go to the same pockets that it would have otherwise. Why even pay them? Hollywood already produces children's cartoons and movies that are wholesome at times.
Hollywood can do it, right? I mean, it's like, what are we doing here? What are we incentivizing? I thought we were trying to build an alternative. I get it, I totally get it. Very strange, but it's just as strange as Chick-fil-A, right?
Chick-fil-A doing something similar and they're doubling down on the, according to this article, Western Journal, on wokeness after getting backlash for gay marriage stunt. Christian and conservative fans of the popular fast food chain may have to start learning to make their own waffles, fries.
Okay, according to the Washington Strand, the chicken restaurant isn't just supporting causes that fly contrary to those Christian conservative beliefs, but they're doubling down on them. If you recall, Chick-fil-A came under fire earlier this month.
Remember, I showed you that a franchise in Utah was celebrating an engagement of a same-sex couple. Well, the post was a direct affront to the company's Christian roots, but they celebrated it, right?
How could a Christian do this? To make things worse, local Utahns reached out to express their dissatisfaction with it, and here's what they got. Thank you for contacting Chick-fil-A Cares. Chick-fil-A embraces all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Chick-fil-A Incorporated is committed to being better together by embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion in everything we do. We strive to, like, really, the DEI thing, okay. Now, Chick-fil-A, what do they have to gain by this?
I mean, they already have cultivated a fan base, which is precisely predicated on the idea, or on the expectations and values of traditional, mostly Christian heartland dwellers. That's where Chick-fil-A is famous.
They were closed on Sunday because that is the Lord's Day. Truett Cathy was a great man. I listened to his speech that he gave at Young America's Foundation years ago, multiple times, because he had, I thought, one of the best business speeches I've ever heard.
He was a wonderful man, wonderful, compassionate. He didn't think the world owed him anything, and he did his best. A modern George Bailey, okay. A modern, just give the shirt off your back kind of guy, and he loved the Lord, and he made good chicken.
That's what he, he is spinning in his grave, and I don't care if his children are involved in it. They have taken his, the good name he built up, the company he built up, he was willing to sacrifice by foregoing Sunday, one of the biggest days for making money.
What a brave guy. He wasn't after his own acclaim and making Chick-fil-A this great corporate entity, and then what do they do after he dies? They do exactly what he was, I think, working against. He didn't want it to become this, and they're not gonna win points with homosexuals, the homosexual lobby, I should say.
They're not gonna win points with the left. Those guys already hate them. What are they doing? They're just sticking a needle in the eye of your conservatives. That's all they're doing in this. Why not be brave?
Trump's in office, for goodness sake. You actually, and it's in Utah, it's in a red state. What do you have to be afraid of? It couldn't be more easy, Chick-fil-A, to take a stand right now. You could have said, thank you for your concern.
We are contacting that restaurant, and we will be dealing with this. You could even frame it in very nice terminology to say, we are handling the issue of how this Chick-fil-A is portraying itself in social media, and we do not find it to be a good representation of the values of our corporate office.
We believe in family, and we believe in Christianity. We do not want to offend our customer base, and most of all, we don't want to offend the Lord. You could even throw that in Chick-fil-A. Truett Cathy would have.
My goodness, I don't, I'm glad that I made the switch years ago. I'd made the switch. I stopped going to Chick-fil-A, okay? I didn't boycott it. I just thought there's better options, and the best option, in my opinion, it's not in my area, unfortunately, is a place called Bojangles.
So if you really want some good chicken, and oftentimes, I don't know enough about them, but they are playing Christian music in there, walk into a Bojangles, get yourself some nice Cajun-style chicken.
There's more spice in it anyway. Get some sweet tea. Sit down, get some barbecue sauce. They have some good barbecue sauce. Fries are better than Chick-fil-A. Chicken is better than Chick-fil-A, okay?
Oh, it's more unhealthy. Chick-fil-A's not that healthy, guys. It may be more unhealthy, but it's unhealthy either way, and how often do you go out to get chicken sandwiches anyway? Go to Bojangles and get yourself a tall, tall cup of sweet tea.
Just try it. Just one time, if you haven't done it, you'll never go back to Chick-fil-A, okay? That's my experience. By the way, J .D. Greer is on the board of Chick-fil-A. Can you believe that? Yeah, I'm gonna leave that there.
Well, continuing on with, I said we were gonna start with evangelical news, and I kinda deviated getting into some of this corporate stuff, but I think that is evangelical news, okay? How many evangelicals are shopping at Chick-fil-A, subscribing to Angel Studios because they think they're making a real difference in the world, only to find out these companies really don't seem to care all that much about their own base?
Oh, it's sick. Oh, it's sick. When you find out about this stuff, to be honest with you, I'm out when I see this stuff. Like, you had one job. Your job was to be the alternative, and you're not. So what makes you special now?
I mean, decent chicken. If you really like the chicken, I'm not saying you can't go there, but there is better chicken. Don't go to KFC, though, okay? KFC's kinda nasty, in my opinion. Too greasy, too greasy.
All right, moving on here. The Southern Baptist Convention. Shall we get to some Southern Baptist news? The MK Grant, that's Missionary Kid, for those of you in Rio Linda. I know I've said Rio Linda more lately.
I miss Rush, okay? Starting in August 1st, 2026, they were only going to pay for 50 tuition grants for MKs. Used to be 100%, now it's 50%. So if you go to a Southern Baptist school, and your dad's a missionary, and they've been paying 100 of your tuition as a thank you, that ends.
You get 50 now. Now, 50%, from what I understand, if that 50, I just remember this from when I was at Southeastern. I never got it, by the way. You would just get 50 for being a Southern Baptist anyway.
Like, you would just, day one, I'm a member of Southern Baptist Church, 50 tuition covered. I never once got that. I never paid the Southern Baptist, I never received any money or support from the Southern Baptist.
I paid full tuition every time. And part of that, I think, allowed me to be a critic, because I wasn't beholden to them. I didn't need a job from them. I decided, kind of like with Chick-fil-A and the Angel Studios, that they, like, you had one job, and I don't know.
I don't see myself being part of this when you're going in the same direction the main lines are going in. Why would I follow that? You're just at a distance. Right, this was my personal rationale, I suppose.
I didn't see a future in it at the time I graduated, whereas before I did. I really thought this is the place. There's many great, wonderful Southern Baptist pastors, so don't hear me say otherwise. But I just could see that the trajectory wasn't a good one.
Now the MKs can't get 50%. This was one of the main reasons that people in the IMB, International Mission Board, for the convention, were very afraid of coming out and talking about things that happened on the field because their kids would lose their opportunities to have free tuition.
Well, maybe there will be more accountability because that's not as much of an incentive now. But you have to wonder why that's happening, okay? Why is the Southern Baptist headquarters in Nashville up for sale?
Why is it that they can only offer 50 instead of 100 What could it be that's draining the convention financially?
Oh, I know.
You have a lot of churches leaving. You have a lot of churches reducing the amount they are given. And most importantly, you have a Me Too agenda, which is opening them up to lawsuits that has made them spend tons of money on abuse reform efforts, hotlines.
It's insane. And because of that, they do not have the resources anymore to do the basic thing that you as a Southern Baptist have wanted them to do for a long time, spread the good news. And part of that included educating pastors, helping missionaries, helping them in their retirement, helping them in their needs.
They're starting to falter on these very things. It's very sad to me to watch this happen because so many of these people on the field, they're good people doing good work. But the Lord, hey, He provides and that we just have to trust in Him.
Moving on, Lon Solomon Ministries. Lon Solomon, the former pastor of McLean Bible Church where David Platt is now and Mike Kelsey. On December 12th, he put this out. There was a season near the end of my time as senior pastor at McLean Bible Church where an unexpected spiritual darkness began pressing in on me.
And it came without warning, without logic. And always at the same time, Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, right as I prepared to preach, driving to church, I'd feel a heaviness, thick, oppressive, unmistakably spiritual.
I would pray against it in the name of the blood of Jesus and cling to God's promise. All of this was strange, but the battle only intensified. Preaching had always been one of the greatest joys of my life.
I used to drive to church, fired up and eager to open the word, but suddenly something changed. Week after week, I found myself wrestling through a cloud of spiritual resistance just to stand in the pulpit.
Sermon preparation, once a delight turned into exhaust. So he's talking about this inner, all these trials, this inner turmoil. I guess his wife had a seizure. And he's just saying, look, Satan had me in the crosshairs is what he's trying to say.
And the last three or four years were some of the most intense, he says, of my life. The battles came in my office, in my car, on my knees, and even in my sleep. When my ministry there finally concluded, I drove home completely drained.
I was exhausted down to my bones.
Oh, man.
And it took months before I regained strength. For the first time, I understood Elijah on Mount Carmel. And he says, spiritual warfare is real. He talks about, if you're in the battle, take rest, resist the devil, stand firm.
Remember, your strength may fail, but God who fights with you will never fail. I wanna interpret this for you a little bit, okay? Since I produced the documentary on McLean Bible Church and looked in the eyes of many of the victims of David Platt and his takeover, let me tell you what's going on here.
Lon Solomon, many people asked, why didn't he do something, right? He signed a nondisclosure agreement of some kind, but why didn't he, why did he do that? Why did he hand over the reins? Why did he not, when things were going south, why didn't he come back?
I mean, he had the loyalty of the people there. They would have trusted him, right? We often don't know the full picture. And in this case, he's telling you, I was under oppression. And if you get into ministry, real ministry, you are going to be in the crosshairs of the devil.
If you're doing good work, you will feel drained, especially with all the problems that are happening now. The dysfunction associated with the Zoomer generation is insane. You're going to have a lot of counseling.
It's draining. The devil wants you to fail. And I have no doubt that Lon Solomon was under spiritual oppression with everything that we found out that was happening at the time. I think it's a good lesson and reminder of, okay, look, let's also realize these are real people.
Like people are people and we have real needs. We have real desires. We have real spiritual nature. And when we are attacked spiritually, it really is draining. It's not an excuse, but it just means when he was done, it was like, I need to take a break.
I got to be out of the battle. And I think this is also an argument for a plurality of elders you can trust. Really build that up as much as you can. Test, make sure that these people really meet the qualifications so that when you're down, there's someone else to carry the bag.
Pick up the slack, keep moving. Because if the ministry is predicated on one person, if they're the person that everyone relies on, you are going to get drained. And it is very difficult. And so I think Paul was very wise in taking people with him on his missionary journeys.
He was very wise in setting up local leaders and making sure they were ready before he left the region. Paul is the example in this. Jesus even sent out two by two. That's the lesson that I'm pulling from this.
So next up, I don't know how much I want to talk about this. Someone sent it to me and wanted me to highlight it, but Elevation Church, where Steve Furtick is the pastor, announced the launch of Elevation College.
Well, they work in partnership with Southeastern University. So I guess they're going to actually have an accredited college, it sounds like, at Elevation Church. And I don't know what that means, to be honest.
What are they going to teach? Probably not great stuff. I mean, Steve Furtick is, from what I understand, I mean, I don't follow him closely, but he's a false teacher. And I think a lot of that has to do with he more or less is a prosperity guy.
And so I don't know why they see or how they see a market for this, but apparently they do, and they're a big church. So they are starting a college and they're expanding. So there you go. I guess I'm highlighting it, at least.
I don't know if there's more significance to this, but I'm letting you know that there's another bad option out there. Did you really need to hear that? I guess not, but you heard it. One more thing on the SBC.
I should have probably put this before, but Tom Buck did some digging. He found out the SBC is still channeling people towards a helpline for sexual abuse cases. So they were supposed to do this survivor hotline thing, and they have just rerouted it into the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention, because they have a hotline.
So, hey, go talk to these guys. Well, I checked out these guys. Let me tell you what these guys have to say. And I just talked to Greg Gifford about this this morning, by the way. So you'll hear more about that next week or the week after.
But one of the things on this website for the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention is many mental health professionals believe that the power differential is so significant in relationships such as minister and parishioner, physician and patient, counselor and client, that there is no such thing as consent when power is abused.
No such thing. That being the case, words such as affair have no room in the vocabulary for describing such situations. David did not have an affair with Bathsheba. Pastors don't have affairs with parishioners.
Oh, that's great. So adultery is not adultery if it's someone that has more social power than you. That's basically the moral of this story. We can just throw out what the Bible says on these things because, well, there's social dynamic.
I'm sorry, David did have an affair with Bathsheba. Now, you could say that David used his influence to put pressure on Bathsheba. I mean, he was the king. It is resisting the king that does have a threat to it, but she could still have resisted.
And the text doesn't tell us everything about the scenario. So we're left a little bit in the dark, but the term used even there that's used just a few chapters later to describe an actual non-consensual sexual act is not used.
And so there's no reason other than a modern Me Too framework I think to assume that this is a rape situation of some kind. I think it is worse for David. He had authority. He knew better. He was the king.
Of course it's worse. Doesn't mean that there's not complicity. And I think the same goes for all these other situations. I mean, the situation with Jennifer Lyle is like, you could even make the case she had authority.
She was a publisher for David Sills who was a professor and she wasn't a student anymore and they're still having an affair. And it's like, well, that was abuse. Al Mohler framed it that way. Well, no.
What does the Bible say about this? I mean, this is like the difference between did it happen in the town? Did it happen in the field? If it happened in the field, no one can hear. If it happened at a town, you can scream, right?
So there should have been some evidence if people are within earshot. The Old Testament actually takes these kinds of things into account because the desire is to do everything possible to protect the weaker vessel, to protect women in situations like this when they are forced.
But at the same time to realize that there's a lot of women out there who also want to have a sexual relationship that is outside of marriage. And parsing those things out is very important. But you do not parse them out by simply saying, well, that person had more authority or power.
Therefore, I could turn that all around by saying this, that person had more authority or power and therefore it was more desirable. And if there's more evidence to suggest that someone would want to have a relationship with them because of the benefits of that power.
I mean, come on guys, come on. This is, you can do better Southern Baptists, really? This is what you're going to send those people that have legitimately gone through an abuse situation or maybe they think they have, or you're going to send them to this psychobabble.
Here's another one. Many more people get abused than falsely accused. So while we must take both seriously, we must also recognize our tendency to disbelieve the powerless.
Okay.
So you disbelieve the powerless. So basically look, if you're going to be in an interaction, believe the person who's making the claim. Why? This is a good lesson for all of us. And this wouldn't be included in the Charlie Kirk thing.
Okay. Charlie Kirk was killed. What stage are we in right now? We're pre-trial. Well, actually now we're in, we're starting the trial. And we have a suspect, Tyler Robinson. He's the prime suspect. Actually, he's the only suspect in the terms of the eyes of the law, in terms of where the evidence points, he's the suspect.
What does that mean? How do we treat that? Well, the trial hasn't actually concluded. There's evidence that actually has been withheld that will be revealed in the trial because we don't want to taint jury pools.
We don't typically try things on social media. We try to do it in a courtroom where you can actually look at evidence. We have to be careful of rushing to judgment too quickly on these things. When there are possibilities, questions, when we don't have all the information, the right way to frame it is we have a suspect.
We have evidence to, you could even say, based on everything that I've seen, man, it looks like a clear-cut case. It looks like OJ did it. You can certainly do that kind of thing. But it's gotta be rooted in something, right?
And to just say, well, we have a he said, she said, and you better veer towards the she said because most often that's the case. The person who's making the claim is making the accusation. It's, I don't even know if that's true, by the way, but that's what they're saying.
It's more often than not, the person who's denying it's lying, the person who's accusing is, well, that's not rooted in actual evidence. That's just playing the proportion game. And then it's saying, well, because in most cases it's this, therefore in this particular case, you should think it's this, not necessarily.
Let's be slow to speak on things when we don't have the information and go as far as we can and go no farther. Good lesson for all of us. How's that? ACNA, the Anglican Church of North America inquiry board finds Archbishop Steve Wood should be put on trial for allegedly violating vows and sexual immorality.
The head of Anglican Church North America was involved in some sexual immorality. A denominational investigative body has concluded. Wow, they did a process. They had an investigative body. The board of inquiry issued a short statement on Friday and there was probable cause to present.
Oh, let's see. According to the board, Wood should be charged with the violation of ordination vows. In October, the Washington Post published allegations that Wood had engaged in sexual misconduct. Four presbyters and seven laity filed a formal complaint.
Okay, so it goes through how this eventually was tried. After Wood voluntarily took a leave of absence, ACNA officials released a notice of inhibition, suspending Wood from ordained ministry for 60 days unless extended or otherwise superseded by church law.
So Anglican Church of North America has a scandal on their hands. I am not the most, I don't follow the Anglican Church of North America as closely as some. I did recently learn, and I probably should have just known this, but that they do, so this is why I guess Calvin Robinson, when he made a speech and he said, look, the genesis of the problems is usually you have female clergy, and then it just leads to soft-peddling homosexuality.
And all of that.
They actually do allow, apparently, female clergy, so I didn't know this about the denomination, which makes me wonder what Anglican alternatives really even are there, like Anglican tradition alternatives.
There's not much, and it's really sad to me because I have a special spot in my heart for the Anglican tradition. I see Robert Hunt as the first English pastor to North America. He came to Virginia in 1607.
I see just so much of what makes America the way we are, stemming from this Anglo-Protestant ethos, and in Anglicanism is the chief headwater of this, and it's just sad that I think elites, people in professional jobs are most likely attracted to these and come from these denominations that are more high church, and what's happened to that class has happened to these denominations.
The thinking a man can be a woman, I mean, the most ridiculous things, right, has taken place, and now the people within these denominational bodies have started to go downhill. Now, the ACNA has been, they took a stand there.
They're not gonna ordain and sanction same-sex couples. They're not ordaining homosexual clergy. This wasn't really the news story, but this is just my thought. How much of a jump is it, though? Depending on what rationale you use, but if you think that it's permissible for women to be priests, how far of a jump it is, because it's the same exact logic they use.
It's like, well, when Paul said that, he didn't really mean that. He meant this. I know that in the holiness movement, in more low-church Pentecostal settings, there is room for that, but my understanding is they use a different kind of logic to get there.
They use the term pastor, but it's more of like a motherly term. They shouldn't use it, but I'm not defending them. It's just different than thinking that someone can actually occupy the office of a pastor in the New Testament.
That really, my commentary really wasn't about the sexual abuse situation, but I'm notifying you if you're in the ACNA. I guess, I hope that's not a widespread thing. I will say this. I'm glad they're dealing with it, okay?
That is a positive thing to say about them, that they are dealing with it. I think everyone wants to avoid what happened to the Catholic church a few decades ago, and for the sake of Christ and holiness.
I mean, any organization, whether it's Christian or not, if you're large enough, you're gonna have people like this in your organization, and you have to handle those claims when they come up with seriousness.
I didn't say believe them as a knee-jerk reaction. I said, take them seriously and investigate them, and I'm glad to see that the Anglican Church in North America is doing just that. Well, let's get in.
I'm gonna get into some politics stuff. First, let me play some clips from the TPUSA stuff, and I'll take a moment to defend myself against the accusers online, my goodness. It's crazy, man. It's amazing to me that Trump won over a year ago, and it's like, here we are, not even towards the half point of his administration, and people on the right are at each other's throats.
Like, I've never seen it. I've never seen it this intense. It's, I don't think at least. I mean, maybe, actually, yes, I have, but it's during primaries. We're not in a primary season.
It just makes me wonder.
What the primary season's gonna be like. I think you're gonna have, like, Republican-on-Republican violence, potentially, if things escalate further, because people are really at each other's throats.
So let me play one clip from Ben Shapiro's speech last night.
So if Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk casting aspersions at TPUSA, and the people who work here, who worked with Charlie every single day, his best friends, to cast aspersions at Mikey McCoy, and Andrew Colvin, and Blake Neff, and Tyler Boyer, and yes, at Erica Kirk, and to imply or outright claim complicity in a cover-up over Charlie's murder, to spew absolutely baseless trash implicating everyone from French intelligence to Mossad to members of TPUSA in Charlie's murder, or a cover-up in that murder, then we, as people with a microphone, have a moral obligation to call that out by name.
Erica Kirk and TPUSA never, never should have put in, never should have been put in the position to have to defend themselves against such specious and evil attacks, particularly in a time of mourning.
And the people who refuse to condemn Candace's truly vicious attacks, and some of them are speaking here, are guilty of cowardice. Yes, cowardice. The fact that they have said nothing while Candace has been vomiting all sorts of hideous and conspiratorial nonsense into the public square for years is just as cowardly.
All right, well, there it is. And there's a divide, even probably among those streaming right now, about what you think about that. I think that the people clapping in the audience, which it seemed to me like the applause lines were much more for Shapiro than they were for Tucker Carlson later.
Tucker's speech meandered. It was, I don't know, slightly irreverent. It was a little odd, I'm not gonna lie. Ben's was sharp, it was focused. I would say Tucker has the advantage, perhaps, of being more open-handed and feels more welcoming.
It feels more, let's bring the temperature down, whereas Ben Shapiro's jacking up the heat, just like I am in my house, because it's so, actually, today's not that cold, but it's been cold here in New York in December.
So anyway, this is my take on this. And actually, I'm gonna give you a few ways of analyzing it. So the first thing is, and this is my initial gut reaction, Ben Shapiro said something exactly the same thing that I have actually said in written form, and I've even said it on this podcast.
I did an article on when the right rejects rules for Substack a few weeks ago. And I said, actually, I don't know if I said it in this article. I was making a similar case to what Ben's saying, of like, look, if we're just going to commit epistemological genocide, or suicide, really, is what it is, if we're just going to decide that we don't actually have any obligations to tell the truth, it's just whoever the narrative benefits, that's all we care about, and you can throw out the most wild things, and there's no accountability, you can do it from the top podcast the entire world, and make very deprecating remarks, slanderous remarks, remarks that actually divide the movement, that build mistrust, that are liabilities, if you can just do that with impunity, and no one's going to really come after you, or if they do, they do it so gently, then we don't really deserve to have a movement, like a movement has to have borders,.
It has to,.
Like every movement, this is not specific to any political philosophy, or any individual, this is just a fact, it's a reality of life, any movement without borders will become something else, you have to have a defined positive vision, or else you don't know where you're going.
Essentially, if you just hit yourself too, well, we're just against them, then that's what you'll always be, you're relying on them to define who you are, you don't have any positive definition,.
So anyway,.
I've said this, I said in a Facebook post and a tweet, something very similar to what Ben said there, I said, you have an obligation, and it was that when she started going overtly after Erica Kirk, she had already implied it, but she started overtly doing it, that's when I made the post, I was like, look, Erica should never have had to even feel an obligation to come out and talk about this, and critiques of Erica aside, whether she should be out there in the limelight, and all that, I understand all that, put that on the shelf for a minute, the fact that she even felt the need to have to rebuttal some of these claims is pathetic, like she should have had a lot of people out there saying knock it off, and doing so in, honestly, the black and white terms that Ben Shapiro used, like he calls it evil, like that's I think what so many people who are applauding were waiting for, they wanted someone to finally just say it, just say what so many of us have been thinking,.
It's wrong, it's evil,.
There's some like sadistic problem you have, but you need to stop, it's just doing harm, that's all it's doing, and it's making us dumber, it's making us used to a level of analysis that is frankly insulting to our intelligence, now, part of me, I was looking back, I was thinking back, and I was thinking the QAnon stuff,.
There's a lot in it,.
And I know the QAnon, the actual QAnon people are gonna say it's Q,.
Anon was a mainstream,.
Okay, all right, I got it,.
I know,.
Anyway, the QAnon stuff,.
That was,.
There was a similar dynamic going on there, so we've seen this before in a way, like it's not like new, in a sense, I think it's just more popular, and it's gaining more traction, but we've seen mistrust in our institutions, I think the thing that Q had though was, Q was saying, no, behind all of it, there is some kind of order, like trust the plan, justice is gonna be done, like there is someone behind it all, who's gonna make sure everything's right, now, this is not that, everyone's just bad, there's no trust the plan, there's no silver lining, there's no light at the end of the tunnel, that is a difference, but I think conservatives, since the time, I was talking to Trevor Loudon this morning, since the time of the Cold War, we're very used to the narrative of foreign infiltration, that's something that's actually, I think in the DNA of the right, and it's not changed with Zoomers by the way, this is something that Boomers and Zoomers, very much have in common, and it's, I find it interesting to some extent, but I am very different, in the way I look at all this, I actually think there's an American radical tradition, like we have our own home bred radicals, who believe this stuff, and foreign influence, doesn't actually make sense of them, like you could take away all foreign influence, and we'd still have a problem with leftists, I live on the cusp of the Northeast guys, there is in the Boomer generation especially, a fixation on the Chinese, the Russians, communist forces, I'm not saying it's unmerited, I'm not saying, I mean the Russians did a number to us, during the Cold War, as far as their intelligence operation, with Zoomers, it's the same thing, it's like you could just switch out though, Israel for Russia, it's always foreign, it's always something else is causing these problems, and if you study history, if you study American radicalism and stuff, neither of these things make sense of all of it, you can see ways in which foreign influence has boosted, and given airtime and resources to bad organizations, you can certainly see influence there, and it does matter, but I'm very much interested in ideas, I'm interested in, why are people influenced by foreign narratives, and foreign actors and foreign money and all that, like what makes them think that those things are compelling, and let's fight the ideas battle, that's kind of where I've been, that's why when I wrote, that's why like Megan Basham wrote Shepherds for Sale, which is like, look at all this money flowing, very good, need to focus on it, that's why I wrote Christianity and social justice, what are the ideas, what are people believing, what philosophies are they buying into, where did those come from, where do they originate,.
Ben is saying that Candace is this massive liability, she needs to be called out, Candace is using what I consider to be an appealing narrative to both boomers and zoomers, that's probably why she's got the biggest podcast in the world, she can unite generations, that look at like the government you can't trust, look at all this foreign stuff, I mean, what are some of the claims that she's made, like Tyler Robinson did not act alone, Turning Point USA insiders were part of a coverup, the French government, the French foreign legion were part of this operation, the US military was somehow involved in this operation, the pro-Israel lobby or Israeli operatives were somehow part of this operation, and she just throws it out there,.
Sees what sticks,.
Weird stuff that she, the anomalies in her mind, like, well, you can't have a 30 -06 do that, actually, I mean, can't is not a word you probably wanna use, unlikely, that's crazy, that like can't, I mean, I've been following, there's this on Facebook, or sorry, on Twitter, there's an ammunition company, Phoenix Ammunition, I've been following them, and they're not, I don't think they claim to be ballistics experts, there are ballistics experts who have weighed in on this, but they're actually, whoever runs that account is pretty, knows his stuff with ammunition, which we still don't know exactly what kind of like bullet was shot, but that's for the court case, but they know how rifles work and all that, and I know just from hunting, you shoot at certain angles, you can have a bullet deflect, and it can go and completely gut shot, and take out internal organs and stuff you weren't aiming at, if it just hits wrong, that's on a deer, so anyway, I'm saying look into it, but the ballistics are very important for this, but it's gonna be important for the case, I have no reason to say it can't be true, like rule it out completely, I have no reason, and people have sent me so many of these videos, and I've watched them, and I like things like, why look at this person taking a card out of the camera, yeah, well, we know what that was now, it was turning point USA staffers, nothing nefarious about it, or look at what the university did after, did they're just covering up the crime scene, well, actually it seemed like, why couldn't it be just that the university doesn't want to make this scene, a place where people are going to come, and like disrupt, I mean, it's unsettling, they have to keep campus operations going, and you just had a murder happening there, I understand why a university might wanna like, let's do the investigation, and then we're cleaning this up, we don't want people traveling here to investigate all the time, we don't want people reminding our students all the time that a murder happened here, I get that kind of stuff, I'm saying there's alternative explanations, it doesn't, you don't go from like this one question that like, that seems a little weird, to must have been massage, like that would be the dumbest move that Israel has ever made, if they've done that, this is far, far worse than the whole USS Liberty thing, like this, I mean, think about it, you got one of their biggest allies, and in this country, Charlie Kirk, as far like in the conservative movement, Charlie Kirk, I know he was becoming skeptical and so forth, that's why they killed him, well, why wouldn't they have actually shot at someone who seriously was against them, why did they go for the guy that still is going to bat for them often?
That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but they're doing so when they have friends in the White House, they have J .D. Vance is obviously personal friends with Charlie Kirk, they have people that are personal friends with them, Israel really wants to make them mad, Israel really wants to bite the hand that they rely on, they have nothing to gain from something like this and everything to lose, Charlie Kirk wasn't going to single-handedly, cut off the Israel connection to the United States, there's no evidence suggesting he was going to do that, it's just an absurd narrative to jump to that based on nothing, based on what has to happen in this situation is a trial has to happen, the evidence has to be collected, it has to run through state court, people have to see it, it's not for social media right now to present, why aren't these camera angles released yet because there's a trial coming, Tyler Robinson's DNA found on murder weapon, the parents report Tyler Robinson, why isn't anyone going to the parents and why isn't Candace Owens trying to, I don't understand, I do understand, but I don't understand why certain questions aren't being asked that would seem obvious, how come the parents felt compelled to turn in their own son, that would be a good question to ask, what was that about?
Ben Shapiro is I think channeling that frustration and it's a frustration I have too, that being said,.
It doesn't mean,.
I posted that clip, I said Ben's brave, I've always thought he's brave despite disagreements, I stopped listening to Ben Shapiro 2016, Ben Shapiro's philosophy and I think it might've evolved a little,.
But he's basically,.
He's neoliberal on a lot of things, he's classic liberal, I guess maybe not neoliberal, that's the wrong word, he's classic liberal, he's libertarian in some of his social ways of thinking, he even went to bat for gay marriage, I went after him in my book, right behind me, Christian Social Justice for that very thing, he is not in my opinion, the arbiter of everything truly conservative and I think he's talented, I find his commentary a little annoying, so there's that, but I think he's a brave guy and I got so much pushback on that, people telling me things I already know, like Ben, don't you see Ben said this, he's loyal to Israel,.
This and that,.
It's like I know all this,.
I know, I understand, I knew this 10 years ago, it's why I'm not listening to him, I can still recognize the fact that Ben was brave and the reason he's brave is because he's in the media business, he's going after, while they're in the room, some of the top podcasters in the world, actually Nate Candace Owens does have the top podcast, she's not there, but he's offending audiences that he has a shared audience with, he's from a business angle from, I mean, here's the thing, I think people forget this, because I was a lot of people saying, well, look like David French and there's leftists that are saying he's brave too.
And stuff,.
Here's the thing about David French, David French and Russell Moore love to throw their own base, notice the difference here, they throw their own base under the bus so that they can curry favor with the left and build a platform on the left, that's what they do, I don't see any evidence that was what Ben was doing, now, if that is what Ben was doing, then that's not necessarily brave, that's a business decision because you know you're gonna be rewarded, bravery is doing something when it's a sacrifice and you know that you might be rewarded, but you could be punished and Ben isn't trying to throw an audience under the bus, he's trying to go after leaders who are misleading people, he cares about the audience, at least that's what I see, he's also trying to maintain his position on the right, he's not running to the New York Times to say, well, I'm gonna build with you guys now and I'm gonna just start criticizing the entire movement and boy, isn't that a stupid movement over there, that's what David French and Russell Moore do, they're not the same thing guys, so I need to just be clear about this, no, I don't agree with everything Ben Shapiro says, I've been a critic for longer than most of the people who are commenting against me, I'm still a critic, there are things in that speech I'm critical of, especially his ending where his whole idea of what America is, is so creedal, it's so abstract, it's within these documents, it's these ideas, it's not this embodied people that has ancestors and descendants and has created a tangible culture that we call America or the regional distinctions within the empire of America, he is someone who is very abstract and he is more liberal, so I am gonna disagree, but I guess the way I'd frame it is, it's kind of sad that it came down to, he's the one that has to say this, there's other people that should have said this at some point and it just shows you where the movement's at I think, there's an unwillingness to approach those things and that isn't a sign of health and I'll get to your questions and stuff, but let me play you a few more, I don't know how much time we have, I'm just gonna do, let's see, let's do Tucker and then let's do a Michael Knowles clip,.
Tucker.
Most people agree with that, most Americans have more in common with each other than they disagree on and almost everybody agrees on that and almost everybody is willing to tolerate a good faith argument about how to get there, except a few and they're the ones running around calling everyone an anti-Semite, but everyone else is like, yeah, of course, that should be the debate and they'll vote for you, they want that because they know they haven't had that, that's the fact.
And what you're watching now, attacking people on the, attacking millions of Americans because they're Muslims, it's disgusting.
And I'm a Christian,.
I'm not a Muslim, I know there's a lot of effort to claim I'm a secret Jihadi, I'm not. You should not attack people on those grounds and you're seeing it from a public, what the hell are you doing? What you're doing is trying to divide the country and I've lived through 50 years of this crap, all these fake race wars that they're always promoting, oh, go hate each other while we loot the treasury, that's exactly what's going on and most people are totally sick of that.
So yes, there is a possibility for a huge coalition of decent people once they free their minds from the traps set for them by others and realize, wait a second, we all want to make this country better and the 15 or 30 who don't, okay, you know, good luck in Maryland or wherever you wind up but the rest of us would like to fix it.
This is a pipe dream guys, this is a pipe dream. The 15 or 30%, you think 15 of the country, they're the problem and the 85 who, many of whom voted for Kamala Harris are decent, that's the word he used and he's just as outraged, by the way, I should point this out, he's just as outraged as Ben Shapiro was but about something else, his outrage is, look how people are treating Muslims in America.
It's a curious thing, especially in the wake of the shooting down in Australia, targeting Jewish people too, I mean, it's the whole thing, it's the, it is the most,.
How many people,.
It's like 50 wounded I think in that, 15 people I think actually died, it was the most violent attack against Jewish people in Australia's history, this just happened and it was Muslims who did this, one of them from India originally,.
One of them who,.
So I think he's actually Pakistani if I'm not mistaken and then the son who was born in Australia, this is the problem that America is cultivating now too, we have people from other countries who have come here that have not assimilated and they have then had children and those children have grown up not assimilated, that's a big, big, big, big problem.
And to say that there's a problem with Muslims in the United States because of the growth, because of there's certain regions like Dearborn, Michigan or Minneapolis that you go to and it's effectively a Muslim state, just about, it's a Muslim culture, Muslim community,.
You don't,.
They're waving the flags of foreign nations in these areas, what about Israel? They wave the flag, okay, let's talk about that too, I don't like any foreign flag in this country, anywhere that is being promoted as somehow a place where Americans should place their allegiance, Americans should have their allegiance in their local, regional and then national or their empire, America I think of as an empire but they should have their, that's where their loyalty should be and I think it's totally fine to say, there's a problem here when foreign countries, no matter who they are, have the level of influence that they do, I just did a podcast this morning with Trevor Loudon, we talked about Russia, we talked about, well, he talked about, he talked, he studied this more than I have, Russia, Qatar, Israel, I asked about Israel, he's a lot lighter on Israel so you'll get to see that when it airs but it's his opinions, he was good on the enemies within the church research so I wanted to give you at least his perspective on all of this, he talked about even Cuba and China and he's like, look, if Americans knew how many foreign countries have influence, they would lose their minds, that's his opinion, now I just got done telling you, I'm more interested in the ideas, it is true, I really am, I think like, look, it doesn't matter how much money they put in, if we have the, if we're Americans and we have the correct understanding and commitment to this country, we won't be bought by them but human nature is weak and there are gonna also be people who are bought so I know this is a force that's involved in changing our national character and all that but anyway, I'll have to say, I think there's a pipe dream that we're not going to unite around a shared culture or religion or what is it, ancestry?
What do we really,.
What is it that we have to bind us together? Decency, that's what Tucker's bringing up here, well, the Muslims and Christians,.
We can get along,.
We can have a shared community, the 85 of us, up to 85 of us, including Muslims because, well, it's just shared decency, that's not a basis for any national character, I'm sorry, decency is not going to get you a country that can stick together and send people to war and sacrifice for itself, it's going to take an identity formation of some kind, we have to know who we are, decency is a great character quality, we should have it but it should flow from who we are,.
Who are we?
Doesn't answer the question. I'm kind of disappointed with this because it feels like you have to choose now between these foreign conflicts and it's like, I've never wanted to do that. Anyway, I thought that, I think both Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson fundamentally have liberal instincts on a number of things, Ben Shapiro's is more of a proposition nation thing, and that would make sense if he feels like he has an allegiance to Israel and he wants people who don't have a long connection to America to feel like they're part of it and maybe he doesn't feel, I don't know, I don't want to psychologize it too much but it's like, he thinks we're this creedal nation, I've critiqued him many times on the podcast for this.
Tucker Carlson, on the other hand, I could have played you another clip, he talks about individualism a whole lot and when he talks about it, he says, well, we don't think in terms of groups, we think in terms of individuals, that's our Christian New Testament understanding, he said this multiple times and now it's being extended to, it's individual merit decency, that becomes the basis for a shared society, that's not much different than a creedal proposition nation, guys, it really isn't, I mean, it has geographical borders but it's like inside the borders, as long as you're decent, I guess, it's decent according to who?
Who's gonna define what decent is? The Muslims and the Christians have different understandings and different sects within these places have different understandings, so it's a pipe dream, it's not gonna happen.
Let's get to the last clip here of Michael Knowles, this was the most important clip of the evening.
In my opinion.
It's not hard to have an opinion, it is not hard to pick fights, to accuse, to gossip, to defame and to revile, in our age, it can be very lucrative, what's more, it can be entertaining, what is harder is to build, to refine, to assuage, to unite and to advance, what is harder is to mediate, to harmonize, to suffer setbacks with patience and to offer grace to those who often don't deserve it.
Charlie did the harder thing.
All right, there you have it, I thought that was the best clip of the night and it was so true. Charlie Kirk's absence is very much felt, he was holding the right together, he was able to mediate conversations between people who are pro and anti-Israel, he was very interested in defeating the left and holding the coalition together, which stands on a razor's edge, remember that.
We are 49 against Trump last time, what's it gonna be on the next presidential election if we fracture? Michael Knowles is basically the adult in the room saying we have to be adults here, we have to be adults and that's a rebuke of Candace Owens, I think, he's saying it's easy to bring TMZ or National Enquirer type level stuff, you don't have to do a lot of work, you can just sit behind your microphone and do that and rake in money.
You can engage in personal attacks and benefit off of the cameras that come your way and the attention you get for doing so, but what about the hard work of actually building alternative institutions that can last?
What about leadership training mechanisms so we can have competent people at the helm who can actually do the things government's supposed to do? We start these institutions and you get Chick-fil-A, you get Angel Studios, that's the problem, our alternatives that we think are alternatives so often end up just being co-opted, it's a very bad problem, but it is what has to be done and you're gonna have to build, look, here's the thing, if Tucker called me, he's not, I know a few people that have his number but he's not gonna call me tonight, I don't think, or if Ben Shapiro, I have less of a connection to Ben, but if Ben, if these guys called me and we wanna build something, we feel like you could be part of it and it's a positive vision type thing, I'm there, guys.
I'm willing to work with anyone who is gonna build a real positive American vision that replaces some of these failing legacy institutions and we're gonna have to be willing to work with people we don't always agree with, but we're also gonna have to draw lines and we're gonna have to say, look, we can't go down this epistemological suicide route where I feel this, therefore, it must be true, therefore, and let's be honest, Candace Owens isn't just asking questions, she's asking leading questions and they're questions that have implications for fracturing the movement.
I'm interested in building the movement and truth has to be central to that. So there you go. No personal hard feelings towards any of these people, but I obviously have my opinions, they have theirs and I'm seeing the level of division online and it's like there's a bunch of warring personality cults and that is not a good place to be as American conservatives or as Christians.
Doug Wilson, I thought, had an interesting insight on this. He's actually at Turning Point USA right now and here's what he had to say. He said, first, keep in mind that I have a lot to say. Okay, so he said, I visited with Tucker yesterday and had a great time, but also shared this video from Ben Shapiro.
I don't know what video, when I clicked on it, it was private, so I don't really know what it was. I believe, for example, that Tucker is seriously wrong about the threat posed by Islam and I also believe that Ben Shapiro was correct in that clip about conservatism requiring and defined, sorry, conservative requiring defined and defended ideological borders.
However, one of the values he cited was traditional American values, which most emphatically does not include same-sex mirage and Obergefell and he talks about the Heritage Foundation and being suited for a world that no longer exists.
There is a vendor here at AmFest called Gays Against Grooming, not surprised. So there's homosexual, I mean, I told you this before, I was at Turning Point USA's booth at CPAC in 2020 and they had rainbow flags flying on it.
I'm not joking, that was, and Charlie Kirk, he was making, like, something happened in 2021, 2022, he got married, he took his faith seriously, things were going in a much better direction, but there's still an element of this that's apparently present, according to Doug Wilson.
Shapiro's metric, if it's correct, and I believe it is, there is no longer defined conservative movement. If you believe me, then you can ask Dave Rubin. There is, however, a large reactionary movement against clown world and some fairly big pieces of former conservative movement are still lying around.
We should be willing to work with those pieces that are lying around Tucker when he was right and not when he is wrong, Ben Shapiro when he is right and not when he is wrong. I thought that was a pretty measured take, actually.
I know some of you don't really like Doug Wilson, but that is, I think, the way to look at this. Does your civilization matter to you? Does the world your children will inherit matter to you? Well, you're not going to preserve it and defend it and afford it and expand it and reproduce it if all we're doing is complaining online, right?
It's not going to happen if it's pipe dreams that we talk about that can't actually be realities. We have to work with what we have. We have to be practical about this. At the same time, we have to be principled, and those two things are not in conflict.
There's certain non-negotiables we should not give up, and there's certain people we will have to work with. Example, Donald Trump, that we might not agree with. I voted for Trump despite personal failures.
I think one of the things that I'm seeing develop now is people are taking Trump's failures now as positivity. They're saying that that's actually what qualifies him, that, who's this guy, Fishback in Florida?
No, this guy Fishback has his car repossessed, is in massive debt, has problems with paying taxes and all kinds of things, massive failure, and he wants to be the chief executive of the state of Florida.
He's running for Florida, and he says things, sometimes really good things in videos that are just, we're gonna make immigrants pay a million dollars to come to our colleges. I mean, it's like hard line stuff, and it's attractive, I think, to people, but it's like, this is a guy, his main qualifier is the fact that he's got mean tweets, basically.
Mean tweets now has become the sole qualifier. That's not gonna get you there. It likely won't win elections, and if it does, you have disqualified people. You have people that can't run their own lives.
Trump at least had business acumen to pull from. I mean, that's the, at the end of the day, we could always say that, like, well, he's a manager, he's a good manager, despite personal moral failings. Okay, he can manage things.
Well, that is a good qualification. He was also, it was also binary choice. It's not like commentators where, I've heard people connect Donald Trump to Nick Fuentes, and they're like, well, you supported Trump there, and it's like, did I have a choice?
Like, how many podcasters are out there that I can listen to? I'm not in, thank goodness, I'm not in a choice where I have to choose someone with a horrible, odious character, and then someone who's got, you know, I mean, it's a lesser of two evils purgatory.
I'm glad I'm not quite there, right? Trump also had a good administration where he did a lot of good things, and I'm gonna show you some of those things in a moment that are happening right now. So he had a chance to prove himself, but I just, I think if we keep lowering the standard to, it's like, well, personal character doesn't really matter.
What you do sexually doesn't really matter. We're past that point now. And now it's like, well, and even if you're a failure at business, there's some people that don't think it matters. Now, hopefully that's not a lot of people, but there are people, I would say fishback supporters in Florida, and I'm like, this is gonna blow up in our face.
We have to be builders. That's what Michael Knowles is saying, and he's absolutely right. We have to have competent and virtuous people at the helm. Identify them, get behind them, help them. They are the only ones that can navigate what's coming because there's a lot of challenges coming.
And if we don't have them, then we truly will be downgraded. It's already happening, but it will happen even more. So that goes for the church. That goes for really, I guess, anything. Some more national news.
This is actually specific to the state I'm sitting in. Governor Hochul has said that she is going to sign the bill for assisted suicide. So blue states are continuing to go blue. This whole idea that, oh, there's the Overton window is being pushed so far because of what's happening on X.
Not in blue states, guys. It's not. Blue states are continuing to go more blue. Remember that. We have the left to defeat. Now, in the midst of this, there's some positive things that, for Christians especially, I want to show you, okay?
I don't want you to be blackmailing here. You could easily do that on any of the things I've talked about. But look at this headline. This is from The Federalist. Chaplains punished for mentioning Jesus.
Cheer Hegseth's return to God-focused ministry. The Chaplain Corps is an important part of our military, and I considered very strongly whether I should be part of it years ago. And you know the reason I didn't, primarily?
The reason I didn't was because of high-profile cases of chaplains who are reprimanded for doing things like pray in Jesus' name. That's not the military we have anymore. That actually existed not that long ago, under Obama and then under Biden.
There was a problem. It's not there anymore. RFK announces HHS crackdown on sex-rejecting surgeries for minors as malpractice. You now have the general government cracking down on health, quote-unquote, health providers for gender transitions in children.
We were on a different timeline just a few years ago. Now, this is a mixed bag. This is, I mentioned this, I think, on a different podcast, but the Labor Secretary talked about H -1B visas, and she doesn't really give a definitive answer of whether Trump can actually slash them, get rid of them, but she does, they brought in regulations to the program, and they've basically penalized, because they made it so inconvenient, for employers to bring in more H -1B.
So it's basically the ones that are here, and the ones that are here now, there's a whole process of regulation to make sure that Americans are given first opportunity for jobs as much as possible. That's a separate timeline, guys, and it's like, oh, he didn't end the program.
Okay, well, let's end the program. Let's not discount the progress. Erica Kirk, and what did I wanna say next? I'm gonna get to Erica Kirk. So there was a post from the EEOC chairman. What does the EEOC stand for?
That's the Employment Opportunity Commission, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The chairman or chair, Andrea Lucas, are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?
You may have a claim.
This is crazy.
Can you imagine just a few years ago, this is like an alternative reality we are living in. Now, the blue states are still going blue, but we have, there's an aggressive push as much as possible at the national level to really get things done.
And it's in that vein I bring this to you. Erica Kirk endorses JD Vance for president in 2028. I think this just happened at turning point. Here's the question you're gonna have to ask. And I'm a realistic person about this.
There's a lot of anti-Vance stuff out there, right? Especially coming from the Groyper crowd. I wanna deal in real bill here. I've thought for a long time, it's probably gonna be Vance. Now, maybe it won't, but the momentum is with Vance.
Vance is the torchbearer for the MAGA coalition. Vance is doing things like saying, we support Israel when it's in our interest, and when it's not, we don't. He's trying to do things to keep the Charlie Kirk coalition, the Donald Trump coalition together.
The question is, are we gonna fracture it or are we gonna keep it together? My suspicion is Vance is going to end up being the poster boy for the torchbearer for keeping it together. This is the chair of TPUSA saying it.
Now, maybe she shouldn't be saying this. Maybe she should be out of the limelight. I know all the critiques, I understand. I happen to think that she's putting herself sometimes in positions she just really shouldn't.
I understand after your husband's death, depending on the level of leadership that you have in the organization, wanting to initially make sure that his wishes are honored and steering the organization.
I think long-term, she should be looking for someone who can take this over, preferably a male with political acumen who is like her husband, someone like her husband. But sorry, I'm distracted because my cat is playing with something in the corner.
You probably hear it. My wife's not home to deal with this, but we will persevere through cats. I don't wanna get on a big tangent about Erica Kirk. The significance of this is that Erica is the, ahead of Turning Point USA, very large conservative grassroots organization.
And she's already endorsing Vance. It's already basically happening. Kind of early, but it is happening. There's a few other things I wanted to talk about. I think I'm gonna put them on hold though because we've been going almost an hour and a half now.
I'm gonna get to some questions and then we'll end the podcast. And I hope you have a wonderful weekend before Christmas. Robinson confessed in writing, what do you mean? I don't, did I say Robinson confessed in writing?
I don't, I'm not sure. I don't remember. Sorry, that was early on in the podcast. Knowles said himself that his speech was aimed at Tucker and Ben both. Why is Ben getting a pass? I don't think I gave Ben a pass.
I think Knowles is trying to keep the Charlie Kirk coalition together. And I think if you watch guys like, and Matt Walsh is in this too. You know, they're trying to kind of go through back channels and Ben is saying, look at the damage being done publicly.
I am with Ben on that. Look at the damage being done publicly. Someone needs to say it. There's a hesitation. Not everyone's going to, by the way, have the same voice or the same level of responsibility in something like this.
I think the tragedy was Erica Kirk was the last person should have had to come out and talk about this. Like how did it get to that point? Like someone should have said something. It didn't have to be everyone, but there should have been enough people publicly going after what Candace was doing.
John, you actually think the neocons and center left atheist figures like James Lindsay feel justified using woke right? That's ridiculous. That term is utterly ridiculous. Well, I've written a whole article about it.
It's in my book that I've written about against the woke right idea. I think it's silly too. I think they feel justified though. And the reason they feel justified is because as you've had elements on the right gain traction who are more and more odious to the normies and pushing things that are more and more sometimes ridiculous, radical, and weird, you're going to want language for it.
So Rush Limbaugh came up with the term feminazi to describe feminists who acted in very totalitarian ways. And it was this like shoe that fit the foot. Like it just became a term. It was, it just, and we haven't had something similar with whatever's developing on the right.
And the right is very fragmented. And so James Lindsay says woke right. And he calls me woke right. He calls everyone who's like not, everyone who's post-liberal woke right. And so it's ridiculous. I believe that.
I just think they feel justified because they think that they are prophetic before things got as bad as they did with someone like a Candace Owens that they were the ones that were calling it out. That's all I'm saying.
I'm not saying their categories make sense. I'm just saying they were bringing, they were actually submitting a possible category. Whereas there weren't a lot of people doing that.
And it's a hard thing to do.
Terms are, I mean, even woke is just such a street level term. All right, let's see. There's so many questions. Sorry, is it, it's a strange thing to see grassroots companies and orgs get big and immediately turn their backs on the ones who made them big.
What is that? I don't know. It's awful though. And I wish it would stop, I really do. Brianna Hill says, you do know one of the daughters. I think that is one who it was went on Jen Hatmaker's podcast probably close to a decade ago.
If you heard that episode, you would never be taken by surprise. Daughters of who is she talking? Oh, daughters of Chick-fil-A, Truett Cathy. Not surprised. Some of the most conservative people have children that aren't like that.
Can we still go to In-N-Out? You must go to In-N-Out. It's not even a question of, can you? You need to go there now and you need to put a double-double in your mouth. Mary says, starting watching Joel W.
After I started watching you, I have not always agreed with some views but did dig into what he was saying though. Struggling recently. Are you following what he is saying? I don't, Joel W., maybe Joel Webben?
No, I am not following what he is saying. Let's see. Salt and Grace Poetry. What are you, oh, this is not to me.
This is someone else.
All right, I'm gonna ignore that. Get your questions in now because it's speak now or forever hold your peace. Women can sin. I know, you heard it here first. They can definitely sin. There's no doubt about it.
I live with one. I also, I live with two. I live with a daughter and a wife and I can sin, but they can also sin. Shapiro has never been MAGA. Why do they tolerate him? It's part of the MAGA coalition.
I mean, the MAGA coalition is kind of broad. Is not naming names just a version of Mott and Bailey? Not necessarily. Jesus didn't always name names. Neither did Paul. They did at times. And I think the question with naming names is do the people you're warning about something, do they know who you're talking about?
You don't always have to name the name for them to know who you're talking about. Sometimes you do. It's a matter of prudence. If you're unwilling to name names because you're a coward, that's a different issue.
I'm looking specifically for questions. California Kevman, you want a list of claims. ROTC kids, the architects of the school, Ninja Turtles, Mormon bees, Egyptian planes, white SUVs, Marin shirt wearing individuals, TPUSA for, yeah, I know, I know.
I didn't even get into all that. And apparently, yeah, the Egyptian plane thing wasn't apparently even true. It's just, it's just stupid. Let's see, sorry. Some of you I've already answered questions for.
It's nothing personal. I'm trying to go to new people if I can. I think most of the people asking questions have already asked stuff. Okay, I think that's it. Hi, John, I have no questions. Just want to wish you a Merry Christmas.
That's the best one. Thanks, Bernie. Merry Christmas to you too. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. And during the holiday, I hope that you can get your mind out of the political stuff maybe even starting now.
Sort of take that deep breath and read Old Christmas by Washington Irving or the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens or something that really helps you focus on things that matter. Obviously read the Bible, read the first story of the nativity, go to church and love your family and have a Merry Christmas.
God bless, bye now.