Is the Fundamentalist War on Wokeness a War on Christian Love?

Reviewing Michael Byrd’s Article on Wokeness, Love, and the SBC

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. We're gonna do something a little fun today. It's a short episode, but some people have sent me this article from a guy named Michael Byrd in Australia, and they said, John, you gotta review this, and I haven't read it, but that's part of the fun.

My expectations are low, because people have said it's terrible, but I'm gonna read it, and hey, see what I think. So you're gonna get my reactions in real time. So hopefully, this will be helpful to you, and it's funny, as I was getting these messages, I thought, I've heard that name before, and the reason for that is because I'm a Southeastern graduate, and Michael Byrd is from Australia, but he came to Southeastern, and if some of you remember correctly, I know I played this on the podcast probably almost a year ago now, but this is part of what he said when he came.

Some of my female students have pushed me about the number of women I have in the bibliographies. I remember I taught a course on Romans, and yeah, my top 10 Romans commentaries were all largely male, and so I thought about what some of the voices I could bring out, and I did know of some great works on Romans, like Fleming Rutledge.

He's got a great series of sermons on Romans, and so I have been a little bit more conscious out of that deliberate prodding by students to think, well, how can I be more inclusive, be more representative in women?

It's just so important to think, is there another way of reading scripture? What is it like to read the Book of James through the eyes of the majority world? What's it like to read something like Galatians in the context of Sri Lanka, in a country that is ethnically divided between different groups?

I mean, a lot of Christians, I think, suffer from hermeneutical solipsism. They assume that their interpretation is the only one that exists, or the only valid one, but when you realize there are insights you can get from different cultures, and even just from people in general, that their own life experience will bring something to the table.

We do need to be prepared to accept that our way, the Anglican way, the Presbyterian way, the male way, the white male way, the Northern Hemisphere way, or whatever the way is you've been ingrained is not the only way, and you can learn a lot, and at least appreciate the people who are other, who are different to you, and that's in the global Church of Christ, that is what we should be doing.

So, at the very least, we have some good old standpoint epistemology there. It's not enough to be an approved workman, rightly dividing the word of truth. You need to read the Bible from a certain social perspective in order to get the full range of meaning, and really understand what it says on some level.

So, when I made that connection, I was like, man, I don't know if this article is gonna be that great, but hey, we'll see. I haven't read it yet. I should point this out, too. This is part of the other reason.

I haven't done a deep dive, but you got a bunch of bigwigs. I shouldn't say bigwigs, but people in the more social justice-minded people in evangelicalism who have endorsed this on some level. There's Karen Swallow Pryor, who's now at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary quoting it, and then you got Ken Keithley over here.

He says, acknowledging the reality of racism, discrimination, and injustice does not require adherence to a Marxist narrative or becoming woke. Basically saying, it's just biblical, which is, funny enough, if you get the book.

Oh, good chance for me to push the book here. Where is it? Here we go. If you get the book, Social Justice Goes to Church, The New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism, I'll say another word about that at the end.

If you get that book, though, you'll see that this logic that Mr. Keithley is employing is a very old logic. This was used in the 1970s to say, we're not Marxist, even though, as I show, yes, they were influenced by Marxism.

That's why they had the social justice ideas they had, the original social justice warriors in evangelicalism. We're talking about the Richard Nows and the Jim Wallaces and the Ron Siders and the West Granber Michelsons and the John Perkins and the Tom Skinners, and the list goes on.

Anyway, that whole crop, they were very influenced by New Left ideas, but they're saying, no, we're just biblical. We're just biblical. I have a whole section on it. So Ken Keithley's saying, hey, that's basically what's going on here.

He's a professor also at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. If I'm not mistaken, he's the guy, I think when I was on campus, he was the guy that was a Molinist, I think, and theistic evolutionist.

So I remember that about him. I didn't have a class with him, though. So they both like this article. So we're gonna go through it, and we can see the title here is called The Fundamentalist War on Wokeness is a War on Christian Love.

Hmm, that doesn't sound good. Fundamentalists, that's kind of like the big, that's a boogeyman, the fundamentalist today. When you hear that word generally, especially from more progressive types, there's a historic meaning that's good, the RA Torrey, the fundamentals, which was the four-volume set with essays against social gospel and liberalism, theological liberalism at the time.

There'd be higher criticism, that kind of stuff. And this was in the 19-teens when this stuff was coming out. But especially since Carl Henry wrote the book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism in 1947, fundamentalism has been looked at, that term is kind of a negative.

It means that you're for legalism, that you don't wanna have any fun. You're certainly retreating from the culture and not being influential in alleviating poverty and those kinds of things. So when he says this, I'm just keeping that in mind, maybe he means that, if he's more progressive, maybe he's thinking, it seems like that from the title, that this is a war on Christian love.

I mean, so he's not talking about theological fundamentalists because certainly the law of God reflects his love. That's actually how we know we love God, is if we keep his commandments. The whole law of God is summarized in loving God and loving your neighbor.

Law and love go together. He's saying fundamentalists, though. They're making a war on Christian love, which would mean, if true, that they would also need to be making a war on the law. You would think the law of God.

Let's see if that fleshes out in this article. October 13th is when he first put this out. It's been making the rounds. "'My daughter,' he said, I'm gonna read it, "'recently came to me late one night, rather upset.

"'She showed me a video that her Bible study "'had been watching, and it was rather staggering. "'In the video, a certain Jeff Durbin,' I don't know, maybe in Australia they write, "'a certain Jeff Durbin,' it sounds negative, "'who I've never heard of, but looks like he's trying "'to do a 2005 Mark Driscoll impersonation,' that's actually a little funny, said, "'the woke evangelical whore is a slut "'who lies down in the middle of,' note to parents, by the way, I have not read this article.

Just keep that in mind, if you have children in the car, I don't know what's coming next, so just FYI. All right, I'm gonna continue here, and I'm gonna say what he says. "'The woke evangelical whore is a slut "'who lies down in the middle of a burning city, "'spreading her legs to the rioters and looters, "'spreading her legs to Marx, Engels, Alinsky, and Soros.'".

Okay, I have not heard this entire speech. I've seen some clips from it. I don't think I would have communicated things in the same way Jeff Durbin did, but this particular section, I think he's trying to say, he's using the language the prophets used and trying to say, this is what's going on.

They're prostituting themselves out to the world. They're being used by the world. This is George Soros' Renton Evangelical. So, continues, "'In addition, Owen Strand, "'who I have cordially met, has delivered a series "'of talks decrying wokeness and its influence "'on the evangelical churches.

"'This has met with much commentary.'". Now, I just did a video two days ago on Owen Strand and what he said in that whole analysis of how people are taking what he said. So, you can go check that out, but he's commenting on it.

He has an update here. He says, "'Update one, I should have pointed out "'that if you watch Strand's lectures, "'he does offer some caveats about what wokeness is "'and is not, and he's clear "'that it is not opposing racism per se.'".

It's true. "'I mentioned Strand's lectures more as an FYI "'as one of the other conversations going on "'at the moment about wokeness, "'I was not trying to insinuate that he and Durbin "'are of one mind on this subject.

"'I should have distinguished "'that those two are different seminar rooms. "'I do remain concerned that the CRT phobia "'is being used to attack people of color "'in certain conservative theological environments.'".

Let's see if he actually provides evidence for this. "'Let the reader understand "'if they try to undertake conversations "'about race and justice. "'Others have raised concerns about his call "'for an anti-woke purge in the SBC.

"'Number two, I should have added "'that Durbin's descriptive references "'to female promiscuity is a symbol of compromise "'is misogynistic in its expression "'and unedifying in its content. "'Yes, adultery is a biblical symbol "'for betrayal and disobedience, "'but it is not exclusively attributed to women.'".

Wait, what? Dirt. "'Reference to female promiscuity "'as a symbol for compromise is misogynistic.'". Okay, let's go back up to Durbin's comment because this is confusing. So he uses a female pronoun. He says, "'Spreading her legs.'".

I think this is what Bird's taking issue with. He's saying, well, that's misogynistic. You know, a man can be a prostitute, but look at his Eagle 16 where I think Durbin is getting his inspiration. All right, look at, we'll just read the first few verses of the Eagle 16.

"'Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, "'Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations.'". Not even two verses in, her abominations. If you go through the passage, you're gonna find the same kind of thing.

It's a lot of female imagery. Israel is, "'You adulterous wife.'". Verse 32. Again, female imagery there. The whole thing is female imagery if you read it, and we don't need to take the time to read the whole thing, but multiple times this comes up.

So here's the thing. If you're going to suggest that Durbin is in the wrong because, wow, he used a female pronoun, then you're going to have to also say Bible is wrong. God is wrong. Ezekiel's wrong.

They use female imagery as well. So I don't understand this. This is someone who's supposed to be a hero to people at Southeastern. I don't get it. I don't get it. This is just juvenile. I mean, if I'm reading this right, this is like juvenile level errors.

Okay, he continues. Let me try to be a rare voice of reason in this asylum of politics and religion. Well, that sounds kind of prideful. I know wokeness. Believe me, I live in Melbourne, comically known as Melvingrad, one of the wokest cities in the world.

Government's very progressive. So he's talking about how progressive the government is. I have written for political magazines that defend people who are for Brexit and Trump. So he's saying basically I'm a conservative politically.

I've defended conservatives at least. Goes through this. Says he's aware of the problems with critical race theory. And, but here's the meat. The whole anti-woken, anti-critical race theory trope strikes me as not so much interested in opposing progressive authoritarianism.

Okay, now I don't think this is all about progressive authoritarianism, this whole issue. I mean, those who are in the church critiquing this will note that, but usually they're opposing the destruction of the communion table unity, the flatlining of people, and reducing them down into power relationships, which is against biblical anthropology.

They're generally upset about people taking these issues like Jarvis Williams, adding them to the gospel, saying that they're gospel issues to take down white Jesus, to have some kind of affirmative action, or of some kind where you're promoting, or quotas where you're putting minority voices on stages, and taking down white voices because of the color of their skin, and not because of their ability.

I mean, the list goes on, but these are the things that cause division, and are the concerns. And of course, underneath all this standpoint epistemology, which completely rejects the idea of absolute truth.

So we got to read from, as we heard Michael Byrd saying, womanist perspectives. I mean, that's part and parcel to intersectionality. So those are the issues, Mr. Byrd. It's not just about progressive authoritarianism.

So I sense a false dichotomy coming. He says it's, you know, this whole effort, this trope, it strikes me as not so much interested in opposing progressive authoritarianism, and its divisive racial politics, as much as it serves to deny ethnic minorities have any grievances, and white churches have any responsibility to do anything about it.

Now, here's the deal, guys. Here's the deal. I don't know anyone, including myself, I don't know anyone who doesn't think that actual like old fashioned kind of racism, the kind that your grandpa and your father would have thought of as racism.

In other words, ethnic superiority, thinking you're better than someone else because of some genetic feature, you know, you have more self-worth than someone else, should be treated as if you have more self-worth, that kind of thing.

I don't know of anyone who supports that. Anyone, not one person that I know personally that's on the conservative side of this that is against it. So I don't know of anyone who's denying ethnic minorities the fact that they have grievances, or had grievances, or could have grievances.

Certainly there are situations, and I think everyone is open to it, but we want, there needs to be proof that this is actually the case. You can't just have a police shooting, or some, I'll give you a little story that I've told, I know I told this at a conference, but I had, it was, I was down at a conference, and someone came to me and said, there was a family that came to their church, who happened to be black, and they were so offended that hymns were being played, and said basically that this is oppressing them, you need to get rid of hymns, you need to do different styles of music.

And this is somehow, that's not oppression, guys, obviously that's not oppression, the fact that you're gonna come into a church, and then try to change the entire flavor of that church, not based on, because of oppression, but based on preference and style, and calling it oppression.

That's the kind of thing that I've seen, those kinds of examples are used as, well, that church is white supremacist. Think of what happened in Naples, they disagreed with a guy who came in, they said he doesn't meet the qualifications, Marcus Hayes does not have the qualifications to be the pastor here, according to our constitution.

He also doesn't believe the theology that we believe, we think he undercuts orthodoxy, he wants to change the way that the church is gonna run. Few of us don't wanna vote for him, enough to make sure that he's not gonna take that position, and of course they're called racist.

That's the kind of thing, guys, that I see happening. And if you have an example of an actual church, that's really saying you're a different skin color, or something, so you don't belong here, that's absolutely wrong, we would all stand against it, that's evil, and of course it could still happen, and it could also happen in a setting in which there are black, or Hispanic, or Asian, or it doesn't matter, because any kind of race can have that kind of attitude, any kind of ethnicity.

So, I mean, this is just on its face, in my opinion, this is just, I haven't even gotten into where he's gonna outline this, we'll see what examples he gives, but if he doesn't give actual hard and fast examples, then this is just semi-slanderous, really.

If he doesn't have examples to point to, or some kind of a rationale here. All right, so let's wait, let's see, let's see if he's got the rationale. In my mind, he says, acknowledging the reality of racism, discrimination, and injustice, whether historical, cultural, institutional, and determining to change it, does not require adherence to a Marxist narrative, or becoming woke.

Okay, no, but if you're going to treat it like it's invisible, like, well, we can't point you to the racist, because we don't have an example, and we can't point you to the law that's, you know, making it so that there is a de facto racism being implemented.

So we can't, we don't have the law, we don't have, that's specifically racist, that's partial to certain ethnicities. I mean, I can think of a law that would be affirmative action stuff, but that doesn't seem to be a problem to these guys.

But if you can't point to a law that's, you know, white supremacy in the law, if you can't point to those who are racist that are making those statements, and then motivated by the rationale in those statements, trying to oppress, then you can't say it's systemically racist, which means racist is from top to bottom, completely flooded with racism, it's all characterized by racism, that would be wrong.

That's what the pushback is, that's what critical race theory gives us, all right? Rather, it is the outworking of the liberal political tradition rooted in a Christian worldview, where everyone should have the same rights, freedom, and opportunities.

Where, to quote George Washington, quoting scripture, everyone will sit under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid. Washington, of course, though, came from a world of hierarchies, and I don't mean ethnic hierarchy specifically, I'm saying that he came from a world that was almost medieval.

You had those who were the lords, in a sense, those who owned the land, worked the land, those who were, in his context, they were slaves, but it wasn't just slaves, there were those who, almost in a serfdom type of relationship, worked the land, you had those who were not the planting class, who were in other classes, who were viewed differently, they, you know, hey, if you don't have land, you shouldn't vote, a lot of people thought that.

Women certainly did not have the right to vote, these kinds of things. So Washington was not an egalitarian, I just wanna point that out, and of course, Washington, when he's quoting scripture, he's not quoting from an egalitarian book either, and you can watch my last episode where I'm quoting from Leviticus, and I'm like, hey, this stuff would be canceled immediately by the social justice crowd for nationalism, for the regulation of slavery.

All right, churches and Christian leaders, he says, who are concerned with racism, police brutality, affordable healthcare, protecting refugees, acting on poverty, ending sex trafficking, urging sustainable environmental policy, ensuring LGBTI people have the right to work.

It's interesting. Not sure in the United States where they didn't have that, but as well as defending the unborn, promoting end of life care as an alternative to euthanasia, safeguarding religious freedom, opposing the gambling and pornographic industries, they are not whoring or compromised.

Now, this sounds like the Ron Sider holistic pro-life, we're gonna add in the pro-life movement and then attach it to all these things, and we don't, what do these things actually mean? Protecting refugees, okay, and we're all for that.

I don't know of anyone who's not, I mean, maybe there are some, but no one I know in the conservative movement would be say, we're not for protecting refugees, we are. But we don't believe it's the responsibility of the United States or a Western country specifically to take on every person that claims to be a refugee within their borders and provide for them free healthcare.

And that kind of thing. So what do you mean by protecting refugees, right? Affordable healthcare, well, what does that mean? Does that mean free healthcare for all? Affordable healthcare would be free market healthcare, right, that's what in the conservative mind, that's the mechanism for driving down the cost.

And sure, this is just sustainable development, right? Environmental policy, that's usually used by people who are environmentalists, who want to bring in cap and trade and that kind of stuff. So what does he mean by all this?

Well, the liberal stuff is vague enough to kind of, if that's what he means, if he means the progressive understandings of these things, then we would have probably problems with some of that. But if he means a conservative sort of understanding, which he wouldn't have probably used some of those terms, but of, let's see, conservation in the environment, then we would agree.

So this is vague. He says, they are simply doing what Christians have been doing for 2 ,000 years, which is loving their neighbor, remembering the poor, being a good Samaritan, imitating Jesus, hating evil, loving good, and establishing justice in the gate of the city.

Well, not if they're promoting socialism. If they're promoting socialism, that is not what Christians have been doing for 2 ,000 years. If they're eroding the rights of private property, that's not what Christians have been doing for 2 ,000 years.

Ensuring LGBTI people. Look, Christians up until very recently didn't even know what that even meant. So for 2 ,000 years, that's not something Christians have been doing. If you want to talk about evangelical whoring, it applies just as easily to churches who have tethered themselves to white supremacy, who have fattened their hearts in the days of slaughter, who messianize politicians and Caesarize Jesus, who crave war like a baby craves its mother's milk.

What in the world is he talking about? Who engage in a form of civil religion. There we go. The David Moberg, civil religion that combines the worst of racial prejudices with myths of national infallibility.

Oh, look, there's guys, I'm sure, out there. They got an American flag in church. They think this is a great place. They're very patriotic. And they just think well of their country. They don't realize that, hey, every country has got its blind spots, I guess.

But you're not giving any example. I don't know who you're talking about. That evangelical is the false prophet who leads others to bow down and worship the beast. Wow. With feet made of Darwinian economics.

So that's, I think, his free market economics is Darwinian. Legs comprised of corporations and colonies. And stomach of moral indifference to the suffering of others. Arms made of confederacy, ooh, and misogyny, ooh.

And a head made of military industrial complex. This is, I think he probably thinks he's being prophetic. But it's just so out of touch. Maybe in Australia they have a problem with this, more so, I don't know.

It's staggering. I don't even know what to say to this. Because I can't even come up with an example in my mind that fits any of this. I mean, does he think someone who believes in complimentary roles for men and women is a misogynist?

Does he think that someone who believes in defending our country is for the military industrial complex? Does he think someone who believes in leaving confederate monuments up and honoring the sacrifices made by men who were defending their homes is somehow racist?

And, I mean, is that the problem he's talking about? Corporations are, you know, you go shop at Walmart, you're for corporations. Colonies, I don't even know, what does that mean? Are colonies from the Spanish-American War, Alaska and Hawaii, Puerto Rico, I mean, are these places, I don't even know what he means by that.

A moral indifference to the suffering of others. I mean, look, the most conservative state in the country, also one of the most churched, just about, Mississippi. I mean, they give more in charity. I think they're second to Utah now, but they give more than any other state.

I mean, what is he talking about here? What is he talking about? All right, so he says, so don't buy into the lie that acknowledges, acknowledging a history of racial injustice and prioritizing the pursuit of racial justice as wokeness.

Don't buy into the lie that all social justice is driven by Marxist ideology. It is not. Now, I did a whole presentation on the roots of social justice, what it means, and I delineated all that. Look, there are some people that used to use, especially in Catholic tradition, social justice, and they didn't necessarily mean Marxism, but that is the term that's being used now, and even Catholics use it that way.

The Pope uses it that way, and I'm not talking about Pope Francis, before him. So it's come to mean redistributive justice, and that is not what Christians have been practicing for 2000 years. You can acknowledge, I acknowledge the history of racial injustice in the sense that there were actual laws in this country that separated people in certain areas based on race in the North and the South.

There were certainly, there was certainly thinking in this country at various times that certain ethnicities were superior to other ethnicities in various ways. I think that's, any responsible student of history knows that.

I don't know of anyone who doesn't. But that's not the key issue with critical race theory. Key issue with critical race theory is that this is, this just motivates everything. That you can't even look at someone like a George Washington without seeing that he is a racist because he owns slaves, therefore everything he did was motivated by that.

Impugning his motives based on that, because it's all about a power relationship. That's the problem with CRT. All right, let's keep going. Let me be clear, love of neighbors requires you to be concerned for the first, for the just treatment of your neighbor, whether they are black, Hispanic, first peoples, LGBT, migrant, I don't know what happened to the I.

Where'd the I go in the LGBT? Anyway, Muslim, working class, or even Baptist. Any derogation of a Christian's duty to be concerned about the welfare and just treatment of their neighbors is an attack on the biblical love command itself.

Okay, so he started off the headline, the fundamentalist war on wokeness is a war on Christian love. And then it ends up being, if you're attacking, you're racist. That's the bottom line of this article, you're racist.

Fundamentalist, if you're attacking CRT, you're racist. That's kind of what I'm gaining from this article. Doesn't really give examples, lots of accusations, prejudicial, conjecture, vagueness, not well written in my opinion.

Doesn't really prove his point. What would be the law? Let me ask you this. If the law of God is love, right? And I just said, hey, Jesus said, you love me, you keep my commandments. He summed up the law of God with love your neighbor as yourself.

If the law of God is love, what does that mean for LGBT people? What does the law of God say about them? I'm not answering the question. You can answer the question. What does it say about Muslims? What does it say even about, what were the laws in the Old Testament about those who are sojourning?

And the rules that apply to them? What about, I mean, what does LCA, he has ethnic minorities here. First peoples, I guess that would be like indigenous peoples. We use that term in the United States more now in academic parlance.

What does it say about their beliefs and their religions, some of them? If we bring the law to God to bear on some of this stuff, then, so meaning the law of God, the love of God, there would be a lot of correction going on, would there not?

So I don't even, this whole article is terrible. Actually, it really is. It's just, it's a lashing out. Now, so this is kind of funny. Michael Byrd put out a tweet. He said, I gotta ask my SBC friends, what do you think is a bigger threat in your denomination, critical race theory or neo-confederate networks?

And I think because he's more of the left, he's also in Australia, I don't know. Right now, when I took this screenshot, you know, neo-confederate networks was losing, but hey, a lot of people thought neo-confederate networks.

So he says, who made the video, by what standard? That even the people appearing in it eventually denounced it as a distortion of their views. So it looks like he might be talking about founders, Tom Askell, those guys.

He says, I wonder how black SBCers would rank these two potential threats. So, I mean, he's a standpoint epistemology guy. Maybe he thinks that minority perspectives hold more weight. I don't know, but I'm not a standpoint epistemology guy.

I'm an authorial intent guy. And I believe that we should interpret things according to their authorial intent in their historical context. And one person said, John, I think he's talking about you. And, you know, I was, a lot of other people are getting shellacked in this.

I was probably the least of the shellacked people. But yeah, one person, hey, he's talking about John Harris, I think. Now, the funny thing is I'm not in the SBC. Also, you know, the logic being used, and I'm gonna point out how this is actually, this is the logic of critical theory.

And a lot of people who say they're against critical theory use this kind of logic all the time. So just realize this. I defend the Confederate monuments and memorials. I think they should stay up. Now, if you show me one that, hey, this is actually racist, says it's put here for racism and white supremacy to intimidate people that are minorities, I would say, yeah, that's really bad.

That's terrible. Let's consider the motives behind this and whether we should have it up. But that's not what we have. We have, and I've seen hundreds of these monuments. They're erected for honor, for bravery, for these kinds of things that are in short supply today.

And, you know, I've read a lot of accounts from soldiers. Most of them fought because they thought they were defending their home from an invasion, their hearth, their home and hearth, their local area, their family.

And so they went bravely into battle, all right? That kind of thing should be honored. That doesn't mean you have to agree with every political thing the Confederacy ever did, or the Union, for that matter.

Republican Party was started in large part because they wanted to keep the Western territories for white labor. Doesn't mean, you know, you've registered a Republican, doesn't mean you have to, oh, I must be racist because of that or something.

No, you actually are able to take good things in a tradition and those things that are true and valuable and value those things. And you don't have to accept every mistake or every erroneous idea that might've been within that tradition at some point, or people within that lineage might've thought.

It doesn't mean it's fundamental. Racism, you know, is racism fundamental to a monument to honor soldiers? No, no, but this is the critical race theory logic. You can get someone to be a racist in two or three steps or less.

Doesn't take long. You just attach them to something, they're a racist. So this is the popular one now, you know, attach someone to the Confederacy, well, they must be racist. And so people are asking, well, what is he talking about?

In the SBC, there's this, no one calls themselves Neo-Confederate Network, I mean, it's what? Conservative Baptist Network has been called that. Here's two examples. Here's a guy who took Rod Martin's, a statement from Rod Martin back in 2002, where he says, I'm a Southerner, I'm proud of my heritage, I'm glad we celebrate Robert E. Lee's birthday and I think secession is, you know, should be allowed.

We wouldn't have had the United States had that not been allowed. All right, well, Rod Martin's a proud Southerner. Guess he's a Confederate, which means that he's part of Conservative Baptist Network.

It must be Confederate Baptist Network. Well, that's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Rod Martin is certainly able to believe that secession is a viable constitutional right. He's certainly allowed to believe that Robert E. Lee is an upstanding man and his birthday should be celebrated.

He's allowed to be proud of his Southern heritage and it doesn't mean he's accepting the idea that minorities of some kind are inferior or should be enslaved or any of that. In fact, you can be a Republican and you don't have to accept all of Lincoln's views on marriage, interracial marriage and getting his Union soldiers, generals together to say, how can we ship the slaves back to Africa?

Those kinds of things. You don't have to accept all of that and you can still honor things about Lincoln. I mean, this is something that Americans used to be able to understand just even maybe 10, 15 years ago, we understood, we can make these delineations and distinctions, not anymore.

You will be tarred and feathered in three steps or less if you are conservative, they'll attach you to something. And this is, I mean, talk about fundamentalism. Michael Byrd saying fundamentalism is the problem.

This is the associationalism that fundamentalists used to have, which, hey, you're attached to someone who's attached to someone who's attached to someone who's a heretic, therefore we gotta cancel you.

They didn't use the word cancel, it's disassociate. Here's Dwight McKissick. Founders Ministry has been featuring some guy and this probably explains why they wanna remove three African-American professors, the affinity that ASCLE, okay, here it is, Founders.

Longshore and Founders Ministry have with lovers of the Confederacy is astounding, Confederate Baptist Theology. Yeah, Confederate Baptist Theology, wow. There's no actual thought behind any of this. There is no definition, save you're a racist.

That's what they're trying to do. And one of the things I wanted to bring out in some commentary here, because I think this is an important point, in the, let's see here, if I can, the 19, I'm trying to remember when the study came out.

I presented on it last week. I think it was in the 60s or something. But anyway, there was a study that a guy by the name of Adorno researched, came out with. It influenced the University of the United States quite a bit.

And he came up with a scale called the F-scale. You can go Google it, the F-scale. And this was basically a way that we could categorize whether someone had, and to what extent they had, fascist thinking, and if they were in danger of becoming a fascist, like a Nazi.

And things like loving your family or country too much, right, those, hey, they give you a higher percentage on the F-scale. And this has been something that in Europe especially, this is what the left uses.

Anyone who's on the right is a fascist. Now, this is what Antifa is, anti-fascist. Now, Antifa's here, and Tisha's calling people Nazis and fascists who are just conservatives. But in America, it doesn't apply as well.

It's hard to call someone a fascist. We don't have the history of fascism that in Europe, many of them have. What do we have that they can try to use to then tar and feather someone? Well, nationalism, colonialism, nativism.

Neo-Confederacy, that's where the term comes from. Hey, you're a Confederate, even though Confederacy ceased to exist a long time ago. And no one that I know of, I mean, there might be some people in the South somewhere who really wanna reinstitute the Confederacy.

No one I know of is trying to reinstitute the Confederacy. If anything, there are people who think that there was, looking at the Confederate Constitution, looking at some of the limited government states' rights positions, line-item veto, six-year terms for the presidency, although I don't hear anyone advocating that anymore.

There are political ideas that some people think, hey, these are good ideas, actually. These are good ideas because there's a very strong, centralized, authoritarian government forming, and look, the Constitution allows for secession, nullification, these kinds of things.

There are people that are saying that. But are there people out there, is there a significant voice, some guy? It's not some guy who just has two followers on Twitter who's a racist, but in the old-fashioned sense of the term racist, ethnic partiality, but no, I'm talking about someone who actually has a real following.