12 Days of Charity - Bradly Mason and Ameen Hudson + Mandalorian Commentary

12 Days of Christian Charity for Ameen Hudson

Well, let's get this thing started. Twelve days of Christmas charity. I want to start today with talking about two people that I have a sneaking suspicion don't care for Old AD very much, but I like them, even though I disagree with them.

Even though I think that they say a lot of dumb things, I still have respect for them and like them to a certain degree. Everyone's complex, right? There's things I like about a lot of people, and there's other things I don't like about them.

And I'm the same way. I mean, there's probably things you like about me and dislike about me. That's okay. Nothing wrong with that. But in general, I like these people. And I wanted to just kind of shout them out today in the spirit of Christmas charity.

Yeah, that's right. At the end of this video, I want to talk about the Mandalorian. That's the new Star Wars show on Disney Plus. I want to talk about why I think it works and why people are receiving it so well, despite the fact that it's quite mediocre.

Talk about that in a minute. Hold on. Anyway, so as far as the Christmas charity thing, you're going to notice when the series is complete that there's like groups of people, right? And today's group is basically people that are social justice advocates, social justice warriors, you might say, and that I found out about them via Twitter.

So they tweet a lot and they write blogs and stuff like that. So that's the category for today. Social justice, tweeters and bloggers. Let's take a sip of this black coffee. This is good. This is good coffee here.

No soy today. Put it that way. Yum. Anyway, so today's there's going to be one person that surprises you and one person that probably doesn't surprise you. But here we go. So the first person I want to talk about today is Ameen Hudson.

Now that might not surprise you that I like Ameen Hudson. Ameen Hudson is a writer. He blogs for the Gospel Coalition. He blogs for Jamar Tisby's organization, The Witness. He tweets a lot. He does a podcast and that kind of thing.

And if you also remember, Ameen and I actually had an interaction on video, which is very, very rare in the social justice debate. That kind of thing just doesn't really happen very often. We exchanged a few disagreements.

We talked things out. I think he was surprised at how reasonable I was. I don't know that. But overall, I get the impression just from our interactions on Twitter and stuff like that, I get the impression that Ameen doesn't care for me very much.

I could be wrong. And if I'm wrong, I'm sorry, Ameen, I don't want to put that on you. But I get the impression that you don't like me very much. And that's okay. Some people don't like me. I'm fine with that.

But I like Ameen. I actually think Ameen is a really cool guy. And he's the kind of guy that I think I could hang out with and get along with very well, just judging from the little interaction that we had on that video.

I'll put the link to that video in the information section of this one because I thought it went really well. And I think that Ameen deserves a lot of props, him and KB both deserve a lot of props for doing it because it was a lot of fun and it shows courage.

And that's what I like about Ameen. He's got conviction and he's got courage where so many people, so many of his peers simply do not have the courage. They use excuses like, well, I'm not going to platform a white supremacist or I have nothing to say to you, we're just never going to agree.

See, Ameen understands that's really not about him and I agreeing. It's about the people that follow us, right? I mean, look at Ameen's Twitter page here. He's got 6 ,000 followers. He's got a decent sized YouTube channel as well, if I remember correctly, it was the Native Speaks podcast.

He's got a pretty good following. And so when Ameen and I interact and we talk and we disagree and stuff, he's not really trying to convince me, at least I don't think so. And I'm really not trying to convince him.

It would be great if I could convince Ameen to adopt my perspective on this because I think I'm right. But I don't go into that thinking that I will, but I think it'll be very helpful for everybody else to see where I stand and why, where he stands and why, and to hear us cross-examine each other.

I think that does a great service to the church. And I'm so happy that Ameen chose to do that because it's so easy for people on his side of this issue to use the excuse, oh, you're going to require emotional energy from me, blah, blah, blah.

That's what his friends all do. It's so annoying. It's so pathetic and it's embarrassing. And no Christian should behave that way. And Ameen did not behave that way. I respect that very much. So I like him very much.

My piece of unsolicited advice for Ameen, I don't know if he wants this advice. I don't know if he cares what I have to say. It doesn't matter because that's what the 12 Days of Christian Charity is all about.

Christmas charity, I should say. I'm offering unsolicited advice to these people who I don't think like me, but I like very much. Ameen, my advice for you is that you do more of what we did on video. You don't have to do it with me.

I don't care. This is not about building my YouTube channel. It really isn't. I would love to build my YouTube channel, don't get me wrong. But I'm not saying we have to interact. If you don't like me, you don't trust me, I get that.

I'm not saying you don't. I'm just saying if. But you should do more of those interactions. You're at your best when you're interacting with people. You're at your worst when you're doing monologues. In my opinion, unsolicited, unwanted advice probably, but when he tweets and he's not responding and he's just putting his thoughts out there, that's when I think he's at his worst.

But when he's at his best is when he's interacting, and I think he's so helpful. I think Ameen has a lot to offer the church. I think he's dead wrong on a lot of things, but I think he's a good guy. I think he's an asset to the body of Christ, and I'd like to see more of what you did with me with that kind of interaction.

You're quick on your feet. You're smart, and honestly, I think that that would be so helpful to the body of Christ, so helpful. Anyway, Ameen, love you, brother. I do. I really do, and I hope that this is not insulting to you.

If you do like me and I'm just wrong, I'm just reading you wrong, I'm sorry, but it strikes me like you don't like me very much. Anyway, let's move on to the one that's going to surprise a lot of people.

Christian Charity for Bradley Mason

I think this one will surprise a lot of people. Here's number two for the 12 days of Christmas charity. Hold on. Let me take another sip of this black coffee. What can I say? What can I say? I got a weird place in my heart for Bradley Mason.

I do. I do. He says a lot of stupid things, but this is not about the stupid things that he does. This is about why I like him. This is Christian Christmas charity. I think he's wrong on so many things.

I think his blog posts are often very pretentious and all that. Let's move on to the good stuff, though, because this is not about what he did wrong. This is about what I like about him. I like Bradley Mason.

There's two primary reasons that I like Bradley Mason. I think he's got zeal. He really does. He's got zeal, and I respect zeal. Now, zeal can be a dangerous thing, too, because if you're not smart and you're saying stupid things and you're zealous for those stupid things, that can be a very negative thing.

But I still respect his zeal. I think that he strikes me as the kind of guy that really does want to do the right thing, and he wants to be zealous for the truth. And I like that. And I like that about Bradley Mason.

I think he's wrong about a lot of things. And the unsolicited advice I'm going to give him will hopefully help in that area, because I do want to help Bradley Mason. I do want to help Bradley Mason. I think that he does have something to offer the church, for sure.

One second. I think he goes off the rails a lot. You might say the same thing about me. I don't know. But no, I think Bradley Mason has a lot of zeal, and I respect that. And I think he's trying to do the right thing, and I think he fails at that a lot of time.

But look, there's nothing special about that. All of us fail at times at that kind of thing. And I think that if he just did one thing—this is my unsolicited advice for Bradley Mason—if he just did one thing, I think it would help a lot.

And we might not agree. He might still continue to be a social justice warrior. Fine. I'm okay with that. But there's one thing that I think, Brad, you could do in 2020 that would help a lot. Because there's something very obvious to me and to a lot of us that you are very, very—let's see—eager to please.

There's like a couple people that you're very eager to please. And I think it, unfortunately, skews how you see things, how you talk about things. And it really ultimately hurts the message very much that you're trying to spread.

And one of these people is Thabiti Anyabwili. You seem so eager to please this man and so happy to get the pat on the head from this man. And I think that it really skews how you write about this stuff.

I think that the second thing I like about you is that you're zealous. I respect that. And the other thing is, I see glimpses in a lot of your writing of trying to be consistent, trying to be fair. And look, that is not a small thing.

That's not a small thing. Because so many people are just sold out to their tribe, and they don't even try to be fair. The other day, I saw a tweet that you tweeted out about how you don't like Founders Ministry, but why are we calling them Federal Vision now?

And I'm like, yeah, that's a good point. And that strikes me as someone who's trying to be fair, trying to be consistent. Because that's preposterous to call them Federal Vision because they worked with Chocolate Knox, who also isn't Federal Vision.

This is the thing. Chocolate Knox is not Federal Vision. So they contracted with him to do a video. And so I guess that gives them Federal Vision. And Brad Mason's like, that's stupid. That doesn't make any sense.

And he's right. So anyway, that's my thing. So my piece of unsolicited advice for you is try to get outside yourself for a second and try to avoid this whole thing of trying to please the beady. It's pretty transparent to a lot of us.

Maybe I'm wrong about this. I don't know, but it's worth a little self-reflection. You might say, well, AD, I could turn that around on you. You're trying to please James White. You're trying to please Doug Wilson.

And you know, I think about that a lot. I say, am I missing this because I like Doug Wilson? Or am I missing this because I like so-and-so? Like, I do this all the time. I think it helps. That's why I'm giving you this advice, because I think it helps.

I'm not saying you don't do this. Maybe you already do this. That's fine. I'm trying to help you. This is 12 days of Christmas charity. I like you, Brad Mason. I really do. I respect you greatly. I think that you do harm to the church because of your wrong opinions.

But you know, that's the reality of truth. When you believe that something is untrue and you see people that are promoting that untruth, obviously, it would stand to reason that they hurt people with that untruth.

So you believe the same thing about me. There's nothing wrong with that. But I do like you. I do want to encourage you in your pursuit of the truth. And I hope God blesses you. And you too, Amin. I like you too.

I think that you do harm to the church as well. There's just no question about that. I believe that. But I like you, and I wish you well in 2020. And also, I think that my advice is good. Maybe it isn't.

I don't know. But the advice is real. I'm not trying to make fun of you. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or anything. I think it's actual advice that will actually help you in the new year. Anyway, that's the first installment of the 12 Days of Christmas Charity.

Why The Mandalorian Works Despite Being Mediocre

Let's talk about The Mandalorian for a second. Because The Mandalorian, I think, is cool. I'm a Star Wars fan. Guys don't know this. One of the biggest nerds ever. I mean, listen, this is my speaker for my computer.

It's a Millennium Falcon. I do all kinds of Star Wars nerdy stuff. I've got Star Wars stuff back there. I play Star Wars tabletop games. I play Star Wars video games. I love Star Wars. It's great. I don't like the whole Rey story of the new trilogy.

I think it's stupid. It's awful. And so when I saw The Mandalorian, I've watched the first three episodes. I haven't watched the fourth episode yet. So what I'm about to say only has to do with the first three episodes.

I thought it was cool because I'm the kind of Star Wars nerd that reads novels and stuff. So I knew about Mandalorians and a little bit about their fictional culture and stuff like that. And they're cool, man.

Mandalorians are awesome. There's just no question about it. And so this whole show is like a bunch of Easter eggs for me. It's just like Easter egg after Easter egg. And finding out more about Mandalorians for me is cool because I enjoy Star Wars.

That's a fictional universe that I enjoy. But when I step back, I try to be objective about this because I know I'm a fanboy. So I try to be objective. Mandalorian on its own is kind of a mediocre show.

I mean, it's kind of slow. The plot is just eh. Um, baby Yoda is so cute. But let's just face it. Like he's cute. And that's why we like him. And there's not there's really no intrigue here. I mean, if you're not a Star Wars fan, you might not know this.

But but, you know, Star Wars, the universe has not explained hardly anything about the Yoda species. So it's kind of cool to see another Yoda creature. And maybe they will reveal more about the Yoda species.

I don't know. But anyway, so it's when you look at the plot, and it's just like kind of like it's entertaining. It's got good action. But the plot itself is just kind of eh. It's not like but you see, this is it still works.

And I like it. And I want more of it. Because this is the reality, guys. Star Wars fans. We're not looking for like pro profound storytelling. Like it's good to have a good story. But but Star Wars fans like it because it's cool, right?

So so it's not like we're not looking for this deep, like so complex story. But here's what we do appreciate about Mandalorian. In my humble opinion, there's two things in particular. One, there's really no subversion here.

We don't like that. Like we don't want subversion for the sake of subversion. Subversion in a story can work. But there's so much of the new trilogy is just it's just subversion for subversion sake. Like sometimes you should give the audience what they expect.

And what we expected from the Mandalorian is to see a real kind of a, you know, bad dude, you know, nice, like, like a warrior, a gunfighter, just kind of, you know, shooting his way out of problems and things like that.

And being just like a kind of a very proud sort of, you know, he's got a code of ethics. That's what we know about Mandalorians, right? Like, we expected to see a certain thing. And guess what? You gave it to us.

And we love it. Like, what we expected about Luke Skywalker in the new trilogy is we expected him to be old, wise, a hero, you know, come out of retirement to save the galaxy. And what we got was an angry old man that, you know, was like from like the old man from Dennis the Menace.

It's like, why do that to us? That's that we don't want that. When we go to a steakhouse, we want a steak. We don't want you to give me a lobster and say, well, subversion. That's how we want. So so I think the Mandalorian, despite the fact that it's pretty mediocre, we like it and it works because number one, it doesn't subvert our expectations.

We want Star Wars to be Star Wars. We don't want it to be a gender studies class. That goes into the second thing. It's really just about a regular hero. A man who's got principles, a little bit complicated.

He's got a complicated background. He's kind of a ruthless mercenary, but he's got a moral conscience. Like there's some complication to him. There's some depth there. It's not tremendous writing. We know we're not we're not we don't know a ton about this guy in the first three episodes.

It's not like so profound. It's like a common problem. You know, he was an orphan, whatever. He's got a code, but he's kind of ruthless. And then he's got this crew of Mandalorians who, though they fight amongst themselves, they're still loyal to each other.

It's his tribe. You know what I mean? That is cool. And so it's just a regular hero, a little bit of complication, but it's just a man protecting those who can't protect themselves. And that's just that's what we want, man.

That's that's what people are desperate for. We're sick of this nonsense where the men are the idiots. They're the morons. And then you get, you know, gender admiral gender studies coming in to save the universe, even though she's an idiot and stuff like that.

Nobody wants that. Nobody likes that. We like this kind of stuff. This is this Mandalorian is exactly how we expected it to be. And we like it. So more of that, again, I think of the first three episodes were good.

I enjoyed them as a Star Wars fan. They're very entertaining to me. But if I step out of my fandom for a second, they're pretty mediocre. And yet it still works. More of that, please. More of that. Anyway, I hope this is helpful.

God bless.