Tisby, PCA, CA Truckers, & Christian Nationalism

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It's a news roundup today on the CTM Podcast.

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Welcome to the
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Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We have a lot to get to today. It's gonna be a news roundup.
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We're gonna talk about a number of things pertaining to evangelicalism and Christianity and even some international news with the truckers up there in Canada.
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And people have asked me to weigh in on that. My view is not comprehensive, but I'll hopefully try to point you in the right direction and start to answer some of those questions.
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Is this something Christians should be involved in or support, or is this a violation of the obligations given to us in Romans 13?
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So we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about the Presbyterian Church in America. And we're gonna talk a little bit about Grove City College and Christian nationalism as well.
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That seems to be the term of choice used to smear conservative Christians by folks in the media and left -wing operatives within Christian organizations.
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So I'm gonna show you some of this and it's just gonna be a news roundup today.
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So before we get to all that, I wanna just mention a sponsor for this podcast, Gold River Trading Company Tea.
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If you go to goldriverco .com, that's goldriverco .com, you can get some good tea. This is tea, obviously the tea's not grown here in the
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I drink it. It's great for any time during the day. And I would suggest the
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Gunpowder Green Tea especially. I really have enjoyed that. But they're all good. And you can put in the promo code conversations if you want a discount.
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It's a good way to support this show and also a company that shares your values. And there's very few of those companies out there.
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So I would highly suggest going to goldriverco .com and if you like tea, get some tea.
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If you don't like tea, try it out. Just once, get the Gunpowder Green Tea, right? And just see if you like it.
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And so I'm very thankful to them for sponsoring this podcast. And I need to also mention a little bit of a travel schedule thing.
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I'm gonna be speaking at a lot of different places. And in fact, I'll pull this up for people to see if I can here, where I'll be.
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If you're in Muncie, Pennsylvania or near there, would love to see you February 23rd at Grace Baptist Church.
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No need to sign up or anything. There's no contact. You just come at 7 p .m.
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March 12th. I'll be at Christ Fellowship Church, which is the host building.
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They're just hosting this conference with A .D. Robles, Pastor Joel Webb, and myself. And you do need to go to rightresponseministries .com
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to sign up for that event. Would love to have you. I think they have about 175 people signed up right now.
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And it's growing every day. And then I'll be preaching in Georgetown, Texas the next day.
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And then I'll be in Idaho, actually, for two events, the Rocky Mountain Biblical Worldview Conference in Nampa, Idaho, March 18th through 19th.
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And then I will be preaching at Truth Family Bible Church in Middletown, Idaho on March 20th.
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And you can contact Pastor Steinmeier if you would like to come out to that. And I wanted to mention this.
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This is one of the things I was trying to get to. I probably should have said this before. I will be in Arizona in April, April 3rd, early
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April. So Williams, Arizona. And if there's other, I have not made my travel arrangements for this yet.
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So if there's other churches in the Southwest region of the country, and you'd like your congregation to understand social justice, or even maybe if it's a political event, you'd like the people that attend your political
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Tea Party -type organization to understand social justice better, how it is a religion, and how it contradicts
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Christianity, and Christianity has an answer. In fact, for a lot of the problems social justice identifies,
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Christianity is the only viable way to navigate some of these things. Social justice will leave you high and dry.
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It is a false religion. It requires a lot of sacrifice. And then at the end of the day, you don't really even get what you thought you were working towards.
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So we'll talk about that. If that's something that would benefit your congregation,
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I'll bring my books and my PowerPoints and all of that. And you can just go to the section on the website, worldviewconversation .com,
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where it says Book John, upper right -hand corner, and you can fill out a form. And I would love to see you in Williams, Arizona, or perhaps at another place in the
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Southwest. And I'll look into kind of who contacts me.
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I don't mind speaking to smaller churches or larger audiences. I've done both, and it's always a blessing.
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And I just view this as a ministry in a way. I don't view everything that I'm doing as ministry, but I do view going to churches and speaking on this as something that the
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Lord has given me for this temporary moment, at least, while social justice is raging.
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And it's certainly helped a lot of people from what I understand. So with that being said, let's get into the topic for today, the topics, really.
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We're gonna start here with a Newsweek article that just came out a few days ago. And this is on the situation at Grove City College.
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Title is, An Angry Debate Over Critical Race Theory Splits Christian Colleges, by Julia Dune. And we're not gonna read the whole thing, just because it is fairly lengthy and we do have a lot to get to, but Grove City College is specifically focused on, in this national story.
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So it's mainstream media focusing on this, getting the attention of the mainstream here.
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Daily Wire had picked this up, the National Review had picked this up, and now Newsweek is picking this up.
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And of course, they don't frame it quite the same way, but we will read a little bit of this.
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Numerous parents chimed in, including one woman from Fairfax, Virginia, who wrote, we sent our children to Grove City College for a
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Christian education and to escape the indoctrination, intimidation, and rejection of biblical truths at other places.
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We did not sacrifice for CRT. Most offensive, she added, was a suggestion that all white people are racists and especially all white males.
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So this is no different than what's going on at public institutions of learning across the country, especially high schools and elementary schools and junior highs.
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You have parents upset about what they're paying for or what they're sending their kids to receive and they're simplifying it.
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You know, they're putting it in their own words. It's not perhaps, you know, all white people are racists.
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I think that insinuation was certainly out there in some of the things that were said in chapel at Grove City College. I don't know that those specific words were spoken, but certainly the idea that you have a white privilege, you're benefiting from racism certainly was there, that there's some kind of a bias you have.
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You can't see the world correctly because you're white. I mean, and this is how people interpret that. Sounds like what you're saying is white people have some moral deficiency and you're along the lines of judging other people with prejudice.
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And I mean, I would pick that up too, right? The nerds in critical race theory circles wanna say, we never said those technical words.
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What we mean is, and it's this complicated white privilege thing, but look, when you get down to it, peel back the onion layers, what are they really saying?
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White people have a certain thing they have to do. They have some kind of a sin, an original type sin that sticks to them that they really can't rid themselves of.
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They have to do penance for, they have to make adjustments in their life and redistribute either income or privilege, or they have to look at the world differently because they've been indoctrinated into something.
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I mean, there's this problem with white people and it's because of some racial prejudice. I mean, what would you be taking away from that?
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Anyway, I wanna make that point strong because of the reaction. One of the reactions I'm gonna show you. Anyway, the
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Newsweek article keeps going and it just says, this debate is widespread among evangelicals and there's a
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Christian website, classicaldifference .com and it posted a list of questions for parents to pose to the admissions department of any
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Christian college their child is considering, which is great. We need more lists like these. I've given my top 10 questions to ask pastoral candidates, to search committee boards.
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I mean, you can't just ask, hey, are you woke? In fact, I just had someone do that. Who told me, asked, hey, are you woke?
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Well, of course they're gonna say no. I mean, that's not popular now to be woke, especially in conservative Christian circles.
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But they're still promoting the same ideologies. They might not be using the same terms, but you gotta ask specific questions, right?
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And some of these questions are really good that the Newsweek article highlights. So we'll keep going here.
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Grove City College president, Paul McNulty, has spent the last few months trying to respond to objections to his institution.
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And then he just does more of what he does best. It's amazing how a school, as conservative as we are, can be a flashpoint which reveals how troubled people are about critical race theory.
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No, it doesn't, McNulty. It reveals how compromised your institution has been on this, and how you have not responded adequately.
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That's all it reveals. It's always putting it back on the parents. And now some of the faculty that have complained, it's always putting it back on them, that they're the problems, it's not the administration.
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I've seen this over and over. He says, I appreciate the concern, but no, he doesn't really. His reactions have not demonstrated that.
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I appreciate the concern, but we need to find a way to talk about race without appearing to promote critical race theory. Of course, we don't promote a
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Marxist position on these things. That is contrary to what we're about. So there's no actual dealing with specifics.
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It's putting the blame back on the parents. It's, we just wanna have a conversation about race.
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How often do you hear that? We just wanna have a conversation. That's always what they say on the left, when it's not a conversation about race generally that they're after.
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They're not having the opposite side come in. Maybe when there's damage control, they might start to hint at that, but it's more, we want a one -sided conversation about who's to blame for racial inequities, that kind of thing.
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And it's couched in this conversation about race. You know, how about, that's what's happening right now, by the way.
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I mean, if you really want a conversation about race, quote, unquote, then, you know, how about, you know, really respond with specifics to the parents and the faculty and the students that have issued petitions and statements about this and what's happening, you know, get into the specifics of it, get into the weeds and don't shy away from admitting wrong.
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You know, there's no, what I see is that this phrase, let's have a conversation about race is used as a shield to not talk about it, right?
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And this is no different in my mind. Critics have equated critical race theory to Marxism because the former defines individuals largely in terms, anyways, it goes into a little bit of critical race theory.
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Talks about the lengthy statement by the trustees.
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It's just getting into the specifics of it. And I just wanted to point this out because look, a mainstream media publication is talking about this.
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You have Josh Abattoi, who really started a lot of this in the media from American Reformer.
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They're highlighting his tweets on this. It looks like they're just really trying to convey.
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It's not really a bad article, but it's certainly not from a conservative vantage point.
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So let's see if I can get to the point where Tisby, Jamar Tisby, they talk about Tisby. Maybe I passed it here.
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Oh, here it is. One of the flashpoints was Jamar Tisby's appearance in Grove City Chapel.
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Tisby, who holds a master's degree in divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, by the way, that's where Lincoln Duncan is, seemed a safe bet because of the solid theological reputation of the seminary where Tisby worked as assistant to the chancellor.
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Yep, that would be Lincoln Duncan, I believe. Tisby was invited to address students on October 20th, 2020 in College Chapel.
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And in retrospect, inviting Tisby to give a chapel address may have been a mistake, said Carl Truman on December 6th.
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Tisby's address and the president's earlier formation of an advisory council on diversity to address student recruitment, staff hires, and broadening perspectives campus -wide made some suspicious.
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Okay, so it goes through the ethnic makeup of the school, talks about the books assigned in a particular class there.
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Kendi was assigned that kind of thing, critical race theory books. And so it ends with this.
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It just says there's a good deal more diversity of thought at Christian colleges than at state universities. And this is a quote, let's see, is this
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McNulty, no. This is the dean of Talbot School of Theology. It says this,
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Christian colleges actually have conservatives on campus. So the conversation is a bit different there. And that's true to some extent.
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That's true to some extent. So this is, I would say, a pretty fair piece of just trying to relay the debate.
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It's not written from a conservative perspective. It's just, here's kind of what's going on.
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And you know, I would have probably written it differently if I could, but it's not a bad piece. Highlighting the fact that this debate exists.
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Now you have Jamar Tisby then. His reaction, and he's one of the ones that we just talked about, who spoke on campus, who really did promote some radical things.
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You can watch the montage that I made after watching a bunch of these chapel messages at Grove City College and a bunch of the clips from him.
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And he calls the Black Lives Matter movement the modern civil rights movement. And you know, basically Christians must get involved.
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That's what he says. It will show, your spiritual fruit will show. Who you are, whether you're a consistent
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Christian or not will show whether or not you involve yourself in this movement. If you ignore it, if you don't get involved, you're compromised somehow.
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I mean, that was the thrust of his message. And he says, phew, when you end up in Newsweek because a group of conservative
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Christian parents and college students allege that you're a stark, raving critical race theory apologist, fam,
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I'm a historian. And history has America's many racist receipts. So this is a shield
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I see often brought up by academics of like, look, I'm just objective. I'm not a critical race theorist,
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I'm a historian. I'm a journalist, I'm a sociologist, I'm a psychologist. I'm these things,
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I'm just in these fields. And it's like, but the point is that critical race theory has, and all the critical theories really, have infiltrated all these fields.
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I mean, you could be a math major at this point and you're gonna have to in your general education and the electives you take, you're gonna get a heavy dose of this stuff at the majority, in fact, the vast majority of American institutions of higher learning.
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So just because you have a specific, you mean you'd be a construction worker and you're going home and you're turning on your
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Netflix or something and what's gonna be there? It's gonna be dramas that are filtering down assumptions stemming from critical race theory.
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You're gonna have it coming to you through what you listen to on the radio, what you read, every company you frequented almost, sending you messages at certain times about the importance of, usually
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Black History Month it happens, but the importance of listening to these stories of oppression and the racism that is still there because it's systemic and it never seems to go away and we need to do something.
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I mean, this is the stuff you're getting if you don't even go to college. So imagine being part, imagine actually going to the factory where this stuff's being produced.
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History, let me just say this. History to me, now I'm maybe because I come from that field to some extent,
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I'm just sensitive to it. I have a bachelor's in history from Thomas Edison State University.
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I have a master's in history from Liberty University. So I've seen Christian, non -Christian and it permeates history.
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The vast, vast, vast majority of historians are affected by critical race theory.
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There is no doubt. I would say even in my class at Liberty University, one of the probably most conservative universities in the country and their history department is pretty conservative by, certainly very conservative by the standards that exist out there.
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I'd say, I wouldn't be surprised if half my class or even more probably buys into some of the main pillars of critical race theory.
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I would not be one bit surprised about that. And that's coming from the conservative university.
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And this stuff, especially when you have kids who go from high school to college to grad school and they haven't really experienced,
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I'm just saying there's exceptions to this, but on a vast scale, you have people who haven't experienced life.
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They're living in the theory world and that's what they're being taught in history is theory. It's not even so much history as it is theory.
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It's about how to get published in journals and get acceptance. It is overwhelmingly left and you're going to adopt those assumptions.
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And you're not gonna think through things necessarily straight. You're not gonna be able to transcend the bubble of the echo chamber that you're in.
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And academia really is an echo chamber. And I say this from some experience myself with it. I'm not saying this from ignorance.
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Even the textbooks that have been published like in the last 15 years and the textbooks that are assigned on like a lot of historical, various historical situations, time periods, figures, they're going to be, there's gonna be an influence there.
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And I noticed it in my classes even at Liberty. So, and I don't blame professors there.
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Look, you're trying to get the most up to date and unfortunately that's how it often works is it's about scholarship.
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You think it's about history. It's more, it tends to be more about scholarship. What are the scholars? What are the historians saying about a particular period?
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Same thing in law, same thing in probably most other academic fields. It's not so much about like going back to the primary sources, figuring things out.
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The primary sources are generally slaves to the secondary sources, to the narratives that are currently in vogue.
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And the narratives change over time. And so what are the current narratives? And we really want our students to know the current narratives. And we do need to know that.
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But oftentimes the textbooks, the big hot books that you need to read on certain periods, they're the new ones that everyone's reading and you'd be left out if you didn't, they're going to be influenced.
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And that's why I even, I read a lot of older books. I do. And I read newer ones too, but I read, especially if they're from academic presses and they've been published in the last 15 years,
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I just know there's gonna be probably some bias in there that is along those lines, very much with some kind of feminism, critical theory, critical race theory, all of that.
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So the fact that Toosbee says, hey, I'm a historian. No, that actually, in my mind, that means you're probably more likely to adopt that kind of narrative that you're being accused of.
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That's not a defense at all. And it just shows how, I guess, how either ignorant or just, it's either ignorance or arrogance or a combination that he has.
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You know, I can't be, I can't be affected by these narratives. I'm a historian. I'm objective. No, no, not really.
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So he says, I was invited to speak and preach at this college a month before the 2020 presidential election. 2020, three exclamation points.
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This controversy has been going on for almost a year and a half. Yeah, because Grove City College won't, they don't seem to wanna actually take ownership of what they've promoted.
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That's the problem. That's why it's still going on. He says, notice the word escape. Too often, Christian schools are set up as enclaves with high walls barring their students from the world.
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Attempts to engage other ideas are seen as attacking Christian foundations of the school. So this is also similar to the shield that Carl Truman put up, which is, you know, we have to engage students with other ideas.
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They have to be exposed to these ideas. Right, but it's the way in which they're being exposed. That's the whole issue here.
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I don't think any parent has a problem with their kids learning about critical race theory, but they're gonna learn, especially at a
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Christian conservative college, the errors of it, why it's a problem. It's not learning about it in a positive way that this is something that's good and helpful and students need to follow this.
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And if you're not really a true Christian, unless you get involved with BLM, I mean, that's not what they want their kids learning.
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So this shield, it's the same play, guys, every time. And I wanna review it. I wanna show you it because you're just gonna hear this.
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You gotta be prepared for it. These are the standard answers. I'm objective, right? No, we're teaching about it.
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We're not teaching it. And you have to be on track when these objections come up and say, nope, that's not the issue.
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If you're so arrogant as to think you can't be affected by these ideas, then you must be living under a rock somewhere because these ideas are everywhere.
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In fact, I have it documented here. Here's where you said this, this, and this. You said it in a positive way.
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You weren't just teaching about something in this objective sense. You weren't, you were endorsing the idea, right?
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You weren't, there wasn't a distance between you and the ideas where you're just kind of trying to look at them objectively and teach kids about the mechanics of critical race theory.
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You were actually, you're swimming around in it. You're telling them that this is positive, these ideas.
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So he says, Tisby goes on. He says, to the suggestion that I said, all white people are racist, nah, but all white people benefit from a system that grants advantages to those considered white and disadvantaged to black people and other people of color.
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What do you do with it? The fact says more about you than me. So this is standard, you know, they're going to pick apart the simplified objections that parents generally have.
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So on the one hand, you got to see this. On the one hand, nah, I'm a historian. I'm not a critical race theorist. I'm just an objective historian, nothing to do with critical race theory.
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And then on the other hand, I'm an expert on critical race theory because those who are accusing me of teaching this, they don't actually know what they're talking about.
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I do. And then he spouts critical race theory nonsense. It's the white privilege narrative. So on the one hand, you know,
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I'm a historian. I'm not a critical race theorist. On the other hand, well, I know all about white privilege and I'm going to correct parents who are oversimplifying what
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I said. That's very typical as well. So watch out for that. You can't have both, you know, either you know all about critical race theory or you're ignorant about it and you're just some historian who's looking at the past objectively and you have no biases.
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He says, in other words, don't invite the black guy to preach about race unless he refers to it only as a past tense reality.
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Plus those black Christians have suspect theology anyway. They should leave politics out of the pulpit. So here's another huge contradiction.
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Literally in the previous tweet, Jamar Tisby is accusing a parent of misrepresenting him.
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And then he proceeds to completely misrepresent Carl Truman. So this is, it's fascinating to me.
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And he does it in such a worse way. Carl Truman never said any of that. Carl Truman's never said leave politics out of the pulpit.
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Carl Truman never said black Christians have suspect theology, right? And I think Carl Truman's been pretty much compromised on this issue when it comes to his own school.
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But you have Jamar Tisby, I mean, they will attack any slight deviation, anything that is not a full embrace of their position, even though Carl Truman's trying to play this middle game, they will just, they'll attack it.
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And it's why it's impossible for someone like Carl Truman to operate. You can't, you cannot have it both ways.
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You gotta choose a side, right? And that's been a big problem with many of the people in pastors, members of evangelical organizations that have influenced.
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They tend to wanna do this middle ground thing. It doesn't work. And you have now Carl Truman getting critiqued from both sides.
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You have people like me critiquing him, in previous episodes for his, in my opinion, a very disappointing response to all this.
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And then you have Jamar Tisby just misrepresenting him, flat out putting words in his mouth that don't belong there.
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After Jamar Tisby's complaining about someone misrepresenting him, and the misrepresentation of him, supposedly really wasn't that much of a misrepresentation.
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It was, if anything, an oversimplification, a just putting it in layman's terms, summarizing, that's what it was.
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But then he goes out and he like really rakes Carl Truman over the coals and insinuates that he's a racist.
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That's really what he's doing. And then he says this, doesn't this say a mouth full about race on this campus?
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Is what you've been doing working? Is this Christian education truly for all Christians? How much conformity assimilation is required?
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And what's the soft quoted definition of insanity? And he's doing this by quoting the ratio of white students to non -white students, according to the article.
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So he's looking at that and that's his reaction. What does this say? You know, what does this say about you?
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You know, there's a problem there, apparently. If you, why is that a problem? Can I just ask, why is that such a problem?
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You're in Western Pennsylvania. I mean, is that, you're gonna attract a certain demographic given the political flavor of the school.
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I mean, given a lot of things. Why is that? Like, does it have to, where is the ratio that must be matched in order for you not to be a racist institution?
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Does it have to be, you know, what, you know, the ratio nationally speaking, you have, you know, whatever it is, 16 % black people.
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So you must have 16 % of your students are black. You might, I mean, what is it? Or is it Pennsylvania?
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Is it Western Pennsylvania? You know, is it North America? Is it, these standards are just, they're not rooted in anything, really.
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They're just a, it's just a way to smear schools if they have too many white students.
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That's a problem, apparently. That must mean you're racist. And this is what Jamar Tisby's doing. I mean, he's proving that he buys into some of these critical race theory assumptions.
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You know, there's white privileges benefiting people. It's white students coming. Why are they attracted? It must be because, you know, they just really wanna be with white people and they don't wanna be with the 172 non -white students.
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And that's low enough. That's a low enough number for the parents to feel comfortable sending them or something. I mean, it's just smearing, questioning motives, showing that racism's normative.
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It's just always hidden there and it comes out in these disparities. And then Jamar Tisby says, I keep telling you all,
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CRT is simply the latest scare tactic meant to intimidate Christians into ideological conformity. This is such projection.
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He says, curtail efforts to create racially inclusive organizations and demonize those who speak up about it. Anyways, check out my work.
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And there's the advertisement at the end, jamartisby .com. Right, and that really takes away from everything, right? You just gotta go to my website.
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I'm gonna tell you. Yeah, this is, CRT is a scare tactic used for ideological conformity.
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I can't help but almost wanna laugh at this because Jamar Tisby and the people that believe what he believes, he works for Kendi.
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He works for someone who is known as one of the popular voices making critical race theory popular.
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And that is pure ideology. That's what critical race theory is. By definition, it's ideological.
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And so he's then turning it around and just accusing anti -CRT.
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If you're against it, that's ideological, right? So this is full of this response.
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Hypocrisy, it's full of contradiction and projection.
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And that's what you get from Jamar Tisby. And that's the reaction. But a lot of people think, hey, he really told them, which is where I sometimes, with this country, so I wonder, how much of an effort should
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I put into certain areas? What kind of fruit is there? And I realize, I realize, totally realize so many of you benefit from even what
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I'm saying now. I'm not saying there's not a benefit to this.
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How many institutions, I wonder though, is it even possible to get reasoning going?
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Can we even go back to the days where Christians and atheists used to debate all the time? And can we do that with these other issues?
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I just don't see it happening. I just don't see it happening. People have asked me even, John, why don't you have more people on your program, on your show that disagree with you and you can have debates?
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And there's a simple answer to that. I'm totally willing to do that. And I actually just recently even invited someone that I have some disagreements on to come on and it didn't seem interested.
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So that's that. But I'm totally open to it. The problem is, there's a few things. Number one, some of the people who wanna come on, there's no,
29:43
I have no clue who they are. They just wanna fight. And there's gotta be some kind of a familiarity
29:48
I have. I gotta know you. It's kind of like coming into my house if you're gonna come on a podcast. You're a guest,
29:54
I'm a host. And that's why I'm very reluctant. If someone comes on and disagrees,
29:59
I can push back, I can disagree, but it's just not the best form for it. I'd rather have a neutral, more neutral form, a third party that's hosting and putting time limits on it.
30:08
You can't, it's gotta be a debate format. It cannot be an open -ended conversation kind of thing, unless that person's very mature.
30:15
And few are. And that's really the main thing. The simple answer is there are so few willing to engage in actual reason.
30:23
Not everyone reasons correctly. That's why we come to different positions and we need to, we can sharpen each other.
30:30
Hopefully in Christianity, as iron sharpens iron. But there's, I'm just saying like to get the plane off the ground, just a commitment to objective truth, to understanding the truth, to being respectful to someone who disagrees.
30:42
And I don't see it. I don't see that that's even possible with so many of these people. It's purely attacking, name -calling, smearing, bullying, misrepresenting, projecting.
30:52
That's, the tactics are all outside of what you would need for a profitable discussion.
30:58
And this is what you get from a Jamar Tisby. How can you have a debate with someone like that? It would just, it's like all the
31:04
Proverbs about trying to communicate with fools. You know, it makes you dumber to even, so I'm not saying that it's not possible, it can't happen, it should be able to happen, but it's, we're just in a climate right now and the people who are being platformed are just not the best voices to be able to have rational discussions with.
31:25
You spend your whole time trying to, the knots that they tie, just untie those knots and you wouldn't get to the main issue so much.
31:33
So, that's just my assessment of kind of where we're at and it's,
31:38
I just want you to be aware of these tactics that are just often deployed against well -meaning parents who are paying for their children's education.
31:45
That's the thing, they're paying for it and they're to be smeared, it's just amazing. So, that's the
31:52
Grove City College situation, what's happening there. I wanted to show you this, the Aquila Report reported this recently, the end of overtures 23 and 37.
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Some of you know about this, we've talked about it on the podcast and we'll read clips from these, but overtures 23 and 37 did not receive the approval of two -thirds of presbyteries.
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This is how the PCA works. There's an affirmation at the
32:19
General Assembly and then it goes to the churches or the presbyteries, so the groups of churches to then approve overtures, kind of like resolutions in the
32:28
SBC, but overtures have a more binding quality to them. And so, the unofficial early count has determined that both overture 23 and overture 37 will have failed to pass.
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They don't have the approval that's necessary. And so, this is kind of a discouraging thing from those in the
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PCA who want to retake the denomination for orthodoxy and really try to hedge against a potential progressive takeover.
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This is just another, I guess the battle's gonna continue, but they didn't get their objective.
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Overture 23 sought to amend BCO 16 -4 to prohibit the ordination of men who self -identify as gay
33:12
Christians, same -sex attracted Christians, homosexual Christians, or liked terms. So, that was one of them and this is the
33:18
Greg Johnson stuff. This is the revoice stuff that they're trying to hedge against. And then overture 37 sought to amend
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BCO 21 -4 and 24 -1 to further emphasize the moral requirements for ordained officers in the
33:33
PCA and to clarify the process of examining the moral character of candidates for office in the church and they have the amendment here.
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And so, it's to tighten up character issues that could come up. And this is, I mean, it's got Greg Johnson's name written on it,
33:47
I suppose. This is supposed to further just really tighten up things so that there's a process by which to get rid of someone who does spout the
34:00
SSA stuff. And so, they failed. And so, this is just, it's, you know, the nominations are going in more progressive directions and this is certainly no exception to that.
34:12
I wanted to talk about the trucker thing. Let's talk about this in Canada as well. And it's not because I want to talk about it, it's just because I got requests to talk about it.
34:21
So, I will honor those requests and I'm gonna be brief about it if I can, we'll see.
34:28
There's a number of stories. You have recently Evangelist Franklin Graham compares the Canadian truckers to Paul Revere.
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Let me read you the tweet. He said, pray for our neighbors to the North. Freedom is precious. The freedom, the issue isn't primarily masks or vaccines.
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And he's absolutely right. This isn't about masks or vaccines. The issue is freedom, the freedom to make our own choices.
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And then he says, these truckers are a modern day version of Paul Revere riding against oppression. Now, I would have not have used that analogy.
34:53
That's fine though. You get what he's trying to say. And I think the central point he's making is absolutely true.
34:59
This really isn't about masks or vaccines. It's about freedom, but it's not even the freedom to make your own choice.
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That's what he says, the freedom to make your own choices. Yes, but really behind that is something I think more fundamental, more fundamental.
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And it is the freedom to obey God's commands. What do you mean, John? What do you mean obey God's commands?
35:18
Well, this rule that truckers who are crossing a border must quarantine if they're not vaccinated for whatever it is, two weeks, makes it impossible to earn a living.
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Truckers can't actually earn a living. They can't provide for their family. It's a biblical command to be able to provide for your family.
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And so the question, here's the thing. I already anticipate all the responses.
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Why can't they go into another field? Get another job, do something different. And if you are paying attention to the situation, you're looking at the writing on the wall, you're realizing more and more industries are impossible to operate in, in a responsible way, in a way that's honest, if you are choosing not to get the jab.
36:01
And so you're being pressed into a corner and not everyone even has the option to just jump to another field, right?
36:09
That's easier more in the United States right now, and perhaps in Canada. I don't know if the economy's there, but I'm assuming it's easier right now in some ways, just because there's a lot of job openings, but it's not always the case.
36:20
And not everyone's in the same position. They don't have the same skills. They have bills to pay. They have mouths to feed. And to just all of a sudden overnight,
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I can't, the job I've been working in, I've been putting in time, I'm good at, I have skills for, I can't work that job.
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I have to jump completely into a field or try to, that's bottom level. I can't feed my family.
36:39
It's just impossible. It's not, and furthermore, I mean, this is, some of these truckers,
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I mean, this is a tradition for them. This is what they know. This is all they know. It's what their parents, or their dad, or perhaps even their mom, but this is what they are used to.
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This is what they were trained in. This is a whole way of life that you're bringing an end to.
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And this is on the government of Canada. And so they are prohibiting, and this is the way to look at it, I think.
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They are putting a barrier between fathers, and in some cases, mothers, and the ability to provide for children, provide for families, keep a way of life going, fulfill their duty and their responsibility to the
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Lord. The Lord commands providing for one's own. And that's the problem.
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That's the problem. If you're prohibiting someone from working, you are prohibiting them from living. You're prohibiting them from taking responsibility.
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You're prohibiting them from obeying the commands of God. This is a time, potentially at least, to oppose this in some kind of way.
37:43
Now, the question is, what kind of way should they do it? Now, that's where we can get into, what are the possible measures that they can take of recourse?
37:53
And we'll talk about that in a minute. Let me just get to some more news stories. You have the CBC saying, having a headline out recently,
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February 15th, for many inside the Freedom Convoy, faith fuels the resistance. You see this link between Christianity and this resistance.
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And you're gonna see that too in the United States with the January 6th thing. There's this attempt to link
38:14
Christianity with this. But there are Christians out there. And it's showing that Christians with their signs coming out, coercion is not consent.
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And so this is something that I think is fairly significant that you have
38:35
Christians that are willing to do this. And why would they? Why would they be willing to do this? I mean, this person in the sign here is quoting
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Ephesians 6, saying the battle's not against flesh and blood. They view this, the
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Christians who are there, according to this article, they're viewing this as something much deeper. This isn't just about, as Franklin Graham said, masks.
38:57
This isn't just about getting a jab. This is about something much deeper. They are sensing a spiritual play going on.
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There's a sign here. Let me see if you can see it here. We must obey God rather than men, right?
39:13
And that's appropriate. Obeying God means providing for your faith. This is a fundamental duty that the
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Lord has given to people. So it's our duty to oppose those who would prevent us from obeying
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God. So that's a summary of this.
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And perhaps there's a vilification going on, an attempt to smear Christians as being part of this somehow.
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You have Pastor Archer Pulaski arrested. Now he's been arrested several times, but before he even was able to drive to the convoy to preach at one of these events, he was arrested.
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So there's, I mean, and you have the video here. I mean, it's just, it's heartbreaking to see this. And the charges were attempts to create mischief.
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That's the charge. Here's another, the Ottawa citizen says, "'Honk if you love
40:12
Jesus, "'why so many evangelical Christians "'have joined the Freedom Convoy.'" And this is a fascinating piece to me because it shows how
40:18
Christians have seen this as an evangelism opportunity. They're going out there, they're setting up booths, they're using this.
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With people who have signs that say F Trudeau and these kinds of things, they're going there with Bible verses, they're sharing the gospel.
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And why not? I mean, this is a perfect opportunity. I've said this, I don't know how many times, but the opportunity that exists right now seems to be more on the right of the political spectrum.
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There's depression, there's desperation, there's an openness to some kind of spiritual help in these situations.
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And for many on the right who are not Christians, it's a perfect opportunity. They're more open to it.
40:57
I'm just telling you, it's just the fields are white. They're ready. And yet you have
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TGC and Christianity Today and the big Eva Guild, primarily still focusing on trying to appeal to the left.
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And we gotta be a witness. They gotta be, engage the culture, be the social witness on the left.
41:18
And when the opportunities, I'm not saying not to focus on the left at all. We need to evangelize everyone, but there's a golden opportunity right now for people that, let's face it, losing your livelihood.
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I mean, that makes you pretty desperate. That makes you start to pray. Okay. And so this is a great opportunity and I'm glad to see that there are
41:37
Christians who are going and taking advantage of this. So let's, let me skip ahead here.
41:43
Just a few resources for people who want to think through something like this more deeply. One is the
41:49
Magdeburg Confession, the Magdeburg Confession. You can go online, just type it in and you get a
41:56
PDF of it. And this is a, this is where Matt Truella, he draws on this for his
42:03
Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate book. But it outlines the duties of government. When does a government get become tyrannical?
42:09
And when is it a duty of a lesser magistrate to oppose a greater magistrate? And then, so these are all, this is would be
42:18
Lutheran, but we have Lex Rex, which would be a more Presbyterian, Samuel Rutherford, one of the ones involved in the
42:30
Westminster Confession, wrote Lex Rex, Law's King, and making many of the same points that the
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Magdeburg Confession makes. So this is Protestant resistance theory. And there's another one
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I have actually right here. Oh, I guess people aren't seeing what I was pulling up there.
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There's Lex Rex, and there's the Magdeburg Confession. Another resource to share with you is this one that I have in my hands.
42:58
This is by Pierre Verret. It's called The Christian and the Magistrate. Again, these are, this is old stuff.
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This is original, I mean, 16th century Swiss reformer.
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That's who Pierre Verret was. I mean, and it's making some of the same exact points. Scottish governors made some of the same points.
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We have actually a rich, reformed Protestant, really, tradition of resistance.
43:20
And the basic argument is that the government has a certain responsibility. When it fails in that responsibility, and we know everyone fails, but when it's preventing people from obeying the
43:31
Lord, there is a duty to oppose this. And it should be a legitimate authority. It should be a lesser magistrate that is, not a mob, but a legitimate authority.
43:41
Now, the tricky thing about this trucker thing, in my opinion, is that where's the legitimate authority in all this?
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Who's, what government or what entity can claim to represent all these truckers?
43:56
The left has no leg to stand on because what they've, they constantly cry, therefore the working person, therefore the little guy from Karl Marx, right?
44:07
Workers of the world unite. And now they're uniting and it's like, no, not like that. Don't unite like that. So there's total hypocrisy.
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There's total hypocrisy from the riots that happened in 2020 and the support given by the left.
44:21
And this was actual criminal activities. I mean, real dangerous criminal activities going on. You see these
44:27
Canadian truckers and they're dancing and they're having a party sometimes. And they're just trying to get the attention of the civil magistrates to, hey, we wanna work, wanna be able to feed our families, much different.
44:42
And yet there was support for those particular riots. And for this protest, they're treated like the scum of the earth.
44:50
And that's a huge contradiction as well. So the left has no leg to stand on.
44:55
But as Christians, I don't know if I have a complete thought out answer on this. I tend to,
45:02
I'll be honest with you, from the little I know, I tend to be sympathetic with the truckers. And the reason for that is I tend to think that they don't have really people representing them.
45:11
They have people who depend on them. Everyone depends on them, but they don't seem to have representation. They don't have, and so they're coming together and they're forming.
45:19
Now, this is the question, is what they're forming an orderly, legitimate authority structure?
45:28
Is that what's coming together? Is it a mob of unruly, anti -government, you know, rioters or is this, and this is the question
45:36
I think everyone has to ask, is this an attempt at legitimate authority? They're coming together and they're doing so peacefully and orderly and they're making certain demands.
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And the demands are we want to fulfill the responsibilities God has given us. We wanna be able to feed our families.
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And I mean, look, even in Deuteronomy, you find Deuteronomy 24, six says this, no one shall take a handmill or an upper millstone in pledge for he would be taking a life in pledge.
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One's livelihood, one's ability to provide for themselves is their life. You take that away from them.
46:18
And that's another question you have to determine, is that what the Canadian government's doing? I tend to think, yeah, that is what they're doing.
46:25
And I think if you see the full picture, if you, and many Christians are seeing this as a spiritual war, I think you are seeing an attempt to put the government in the place of God.
46:34
And it's not just this decision, it's the whole great reset agenda is an attempt for the government to control everything.
46:42
And you can't question the government, there's no recourse. I mean, in the United States right now, there's even a doubt whether we have a recourse in elections in some ways.
46:50
There is this totalitarian top -down control, and you must not question, you must attribute attributes of deity to the government and to their decisions now on healthcare.
47:02
It's a realm that they were never so much involved in. And now all of a sudden, I mean, they're taking control of every facet of one's life.
47:10
And if you see that march, if you see that, then I think it changes the way you look at something like this.
47:16
I think the Canadian truckers are seeing it that way. We're being pushed into a corner, we have no recourse. We can't take care of our families and they're gonna take everything.
47:24
Their goal is to get us to bend the knee. And there's a religious component to this,
47:31
I really think there is. And so if you see it from that perspective, if you understand the big picture here, and you can see the attempt to create a deity out of the government, then
47:41
I think that you're gonna view it differently. And I also think that you're gonna have more sympathy for the Canadian truckers because they don't seem to have much of a recourse.
47:51
And what they're doing is the most peaceful thing they probably can do while leveraging whatever influence they have.
47:58
And so there does seem to be public support for this. You can see it in even the poll numbers for Trudeau, there does seem to be a, if you wanna talk about, who's representing the people at this point?
48:09
Is it the supposed politicians or is it these blue collar truckers? Are they representing the people more than the people who are, their job is representing the people?
48:20
That's a very interesting question to go, a road to go down. I, there could be, and I think there is probably a failure in the system of representation up there.
48:32
And certainly there is in the United States in many areas. And so you have, do you have a legitimate authority?
48:38
That's the question that must be answered. Do you have a legitimate authority here? And is it right for them to then shut down these border points?
48:46
And so I don't, I have a suspicion that a lot of the accusations being made or you're keeping people from going to work and all these things.
48:54
I have a suspicion that that's a little bit overblown, that that is being used as a way to smear these truckers. I'm not saying it's not happening.
49:03
And that is somewhat of a problem. I will admit that. But it seems to me that the basic thrust of this and all the images
49:14
I've seen in video is that these truckers are, they're lining up mostly around border points, which is a direct response to Trudeau's rule that you must quarantine if you cross a border.
49:29
And that's what they're trying to do is say, look, the economy is gonna stop until we are able to feed our families.
49:36
So that's just, that's how I'm thinking about this. Not saying I have all the answers and I'm open to people suggesting different things here, but I don't know that they have much of a recourse and they're using, they're leveraging in the most peaceful way they know how the influence that they do have.
49:50
And it seems like there is public support for it. There is some legitimized way, some legitimized authority going on here of some kind.
49:59
And so I don't know enough about it to know who the ringleaders are and all of that, or if there are people in government who are representing the voice of the truckers now.
50:08
I saw a clip Jordan Peterson had posted of some parliamentary and I guess, I don't know what they call them in Canada, I guess a member of parliament who did seem to be representing the interests of the truckers.
50:19
So it does seem like there might be some legitimacy to this. But I certainly,
50:24
I don't think that this is just the way that some people are making it out. Like this is just this unruly anti -Romans 13, anti -authority,
50:32
I don't see that. In fact, I see that the ones that are rebelling against authority are the ones in the Canadian government more than anything else.
50:39
And they need to stop and they need to let people work. And so anyway, that's kind of where, that's how
50:46
I'm thinking about it at this point. Last but not least, I wanted to quickly go over some news stories here.
50:52
We're not gonna read them all, but I wanted to just show you the headlines. This is within,
50:58
I just typed in Christian nationalism on Google News, okay? Okay, last 12 hours ago, fighting the distorted moral narrative of Christian nationalism and white supremacy.
51:08
Religion News Service, six days ago, new report detail the influence of Christian nationalism on the insurrection.
51:15
NPR, one month ago, Christian nationalism is still thriving and is a force for returning to Trump to power.
51:20
Three days ago, victimhood, racial identity and conspiracy -ism interact with Christian nationalism to lead support for violence.
51:27
Salon .com five days ago, Christian nationalism drove January 6th. Look, this, 17 hours ago, new report on white
51:34
Christian nationalism. This is all recent, this is recent stuff.
51:40
And this is, it's universal, it's everywhere. And so I just wanted to point out something. The left knows their enemy.
51:47
They know their enemy. They know that they cannot reach their objectives if Christians keep being the way they are and voting for more candidates that would oppose their objectives.
51:59
They know their political enemy and they are invested in defeating that enemy. And they will use all the power they have of the media and they'll use all the operatives they have in Christian organizations and they'll use the arts and they'll use the academy.
52:12
They'll use everything lined up against these evangelical Christians who vote for Republicans.
52:19
And they will smear and they will lie and they will misrepresent and they will come up with name calls.
52:26
I mean, this is on a playground and it's coming up with a name call. Think about it that way. Bring it down to that level.
52:31
That's what we're doing. Marginalize that kid over there who wants to follow the teacher's rules or something, doesn't want us to go do bad things during recess.
52:43
Marginalize that kid, make fun of that kid. I mean, this is where we're at. Where we're at, it's where the money is being put, there's investment in this and our side, if you wanna call it that, a lot of the more, people on the more political right don't seem to be as concerned or interested in counteracting this, in securing their base of support.
53:04
And that is a real problem. And I've seen this my whole time being involved in this. The right is reactionary for the most part.
53:12
They're not even reactionary enough. They're not securing their own base of voters.
53:20
They're probably embarrassed by them to some extent. And this is where we're at. So I don't wanna get into detail about the whole
53:28
Christian nationalism discussion other than it is the boogeyman. It is what's being put out there as to smear conservative
53:35
Christians. But I mean, look, I was there. I wasn't in the Capitol, but I was there for the rally.
53:41
And look, were there Christians there? Yeah, there was even some Christians doing some evangelism and stuff. I would not say the flavor of that was
53:48
Christian though. I wouldn't say it. That particular, there were other ones that were. That one,
53:53
I wouldn't say the flavor was Christian. It was very much a desperate attempt by all kinds of people to make sure that the election process still had some integrity to it.
54:06
And they're wanting to connect even something like that. Anything that would stand in their way to some smear, to blame the
54:15
Christians, right? I mean, Nero was the first one to really do this well, right, from history. Blame them, make them the targets.
54:23
And so I think that's what we're seeing shape up. And there needs to be a counteraction. There needs to be some kind of a way to oppose this that faithfully deals, not just explains
54:35
Christian nationalism and deals with the facts and how they're abusing this term and creating a term in some ways, but actually that pushes back in an aggressive way.
54:44
You are being bullies. You are smearing. Target the people who are behind this narrative.
54:50
And what they're doing is disgusting. There's a group of people here that give more to charity that are good citizens in the main, that these are the kind of model citizens you want in your country.
55:04
And yet you're still trying to smear them, still trying to connect them to some kind of evil thing in your mind, something that will play out negatively in the mainstream so you can smear them and eliminate your enemies.
55:18
Point it out, call it out. That's kind of what we need right now. And I'm not seeing much pushback. I'm not even seeing much pushback from people that are supposedly leaders in the
55:27
Christian conservative organizations in evangelicalism itself. It's just, it's amazing to me.
55:34
So that's something that I may be spending some more time on this whole narrative and really explaining it.
55:41
And we'll see, we'll see where this goes. But I see this as, this is the narrative and this is gonna keep going.
55:47
And this is gonna go right into the election. I think that's gonna be a big thing this summer and fall is this Christian nationalism looming threat.
55:54
And we need to defuse that bomb. So I hope that was helpful for you. And just a reminder for everyone, check out the dates that I'm gonna be out there.
56:06
See if I, I don't think I have it pulled up anymore. Anyway, Muncie, Pennsylvania, I'll be near Austin, Texas. And in April, I will be in Arizona.
56:14
If there's anyone in the Southwest who, like I said, wants to book me to speak, I'd love to have some more locations down there.
56:20
Just go to worldviewconversation .com. Go to the tab that says Book John. Look forward to seeing you and hope this was helpful.