The Cost of Leniency: Iryna Zarutska’s Life and a Broken System

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:26

Welcome to the American Churchman podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. And just as I started the intro, my co -host

00:33

Matthew Pearson arrived. Hey Matthew, how you doing? Can you hear me?

00:42

I cannot hear you if you are trying to speak. So let me know if, when you can hear me.

00:51

Oh, you might be just muted. I think that's on your end though. Okay, Matthew's gonna reenter the chat. I don't know what happened there.

00:57

But we have a big show for you today, both Matthew and I. We're gonna be talking about this situation down in Charlotte, North Carolina.

01:08

Some of you were watching my podcast earlier, Conversations That Matter. And since I did that podcast, actually there's been more developments.

01:16

So there's just a lot that can be said. It's blowing up online right now, of course.

01:23

People are weighing in with all kinds of different angles. And I think understandably, just anger. And it's just interesting to think about why would there be anger about this particular case?

01:33

There's a lot of cases like this where someone senselessly murdered, and including from black on white.

01:41

There was one, I think a few months ago that was a veterinarian, which is interesting because this girl was also wanting to be a veterinarian.

01:49

She was going to school and hoping to become one. Anyway, it happens. But this, I think it's one of those moments where a lot of people are weighing in simply because it's so graphic.

02:00

The video is now out there. I don't know how it was leaked, but it is so graphic. Not in this terms of even like blood.

02:08

There is certainly blood, but it's more just this girl's crying after she gets stabbed and people are walking past her and no one's saying anything.

02:19

And she's left there to die in a pool of blood. And it's just, how do you even wrap your mind around that?

02:26

She escaped a war zone, comes to the United States from Ukraine, and this is what happened.

02:31

So we're going to talk about that. Where was God, obviously, right? There's a lot of questions that come up. Whose fault really is this?

02:38

Is this society's fault? How do we solve a problem that has so many different failures embedded in it?

02:46

So that's what we're going to talk about. Matthew Pearson is also here. Hey, Matthew, can you hear me now? I can hear you, yes.

02:52

I accidentally set the mic up or the audio up with my mic. So that's why stuff was going on.

02:58

I had to leave real quick. Sorry about that. I'm sorry, I kind of cast you into it real quick there.

03:03

You joined and then you were live. So anyway, I don't know if you heard everything

03:08

I was saying there about what we're going to talk about. And yeah, I don't know if you have thoughts.

03:13

I mean, I'm kind of shaken about it just a little bit. I don't know if it's because of just seeing that image, seeing that video, thinking

03:21

I have a little girl, that little girl may end up looking something like this particular individual and just not wanting her to go through something like that.

03:31

But it could be I'm sick too. I don't know. If something's going around and it's clouded my mind, it made me more emotional.

03:37

But how are you doing, by the way? Are you doing, you look like you're doing pretty good. You're -

03:43

I'm doing okay. You know, getting pretty close to the wedding and all that. So a bit chaotic.

03:48

We're at 11 days now. So things are a little crazy. My fiance's living here, but obviously can't cohabitate.

03:56

So I'm spending the night at another place and all that stuff. So life's a little crazy right now, but I'm hoping that things kind of start sailing a bit more smoothly soon.

04:06

I remember that. I remember that. It brings back fond memories, but staying in the house before my wife...

04:14

So I actually stayed in the house that we live in now before my wife moved in. And as a typical guy, you know,

04:21

I didn't have everything set up. So I didn't have any heat. I didn't, the water wasn't heated. And then when she moved in, she was like, what's up with all this?

04:29

And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I'm just a guy, but - You're just a dude, yeah.

04:34

I'm just a dude. I thought, and they switched it off like the day before too. And I didn't know, I'd never owned a house, but anyway, you won't do that.

04:43

You won't do any of the mistakes I did. You will have a wonderful transition. I'm looking forward to hearing about it and seeing what that looks like.

04:52

So yeah. So anyway, do we, we haven't really talked before starting to go live here.

04:59

Do you have an attribute queued up for today? No, I do not. I had a fairly hectic afternoon, so I was not able to put any of the time into it, but -

05:08

That's fine. We can revisit justice, because that's kind of what I hinted at or mentioned in the article that I put up there on TrueScript.

05:17

By the way, TrueScript is, oh, I thought I had it queued up here. Hold on.

05:23

TrueScript is a 501c3. If anyone is interested in donating, we would appreciate it.

05:28

And you can also contribute an article if that's something you're interested in. We have a conference coming up in two weeks now.

05:35

It's actually, unfortunately, the same weekend that Matthew's getting married. So I cannot come to Matthew's wedding as a result of that, but it's going to be great.

05:44

So if you're not going to Matthew's wedding, come to our men's retreat in the Adirondack Mountains, musicandmasculinity .com.

05:52

Here's the front page of TrueScript's website, and there's that image that's going around the internet.

05:57

It's been going around for about the last hour. It looks like Alex Jones. I don't know if it was him initially, but that's the account

06:03

I keep seeing that has access to the video of the actual murder, and it is not for the faint of heart.

06:10

I wouldn't recommend watching it if you're, I mean, I don't know what reason there would be other than just,

06:17

I don't know, seeing how terrible people are and the potential. Human depravity is real, guys.

06:24

I mean, I don't know how, I don't know how, like, if you're not reformed in your theology, you wrap your mind around this.

06:31

It's just like human depravity is staring you back when you see this. But there's the image right there of the moment right after, actually, this girl,

06:42

Erna Zarotska, I think is how you pronounce it, or Zarotska. She was stabbed with a knife and by a man named

06:51

Carlos Brown, and in that moment afterward, I mean, she just didn't even know it happened,

06:57

I don't think, and you can see that look of fear, and then she starts crying, and it's just really heartbreaking.

07:02

But I wrote this kind of quickly, and we can go over some of it and get comments from people as they're coming into the chat and get

07:11

Matthew's comments as well, but I start out by saying it's hard to describe the overwhelming anger and sadness

07:17

I felt the first time I saw the video of 23 -year -old Erna Zarotska's murder.

07:25

She was on her way home from work riding a light rail train in Charlotte when she was attacked and killed by Carlos Brown.

07:31

Brown had a history of violent crime, including assaults and robberies, and had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia, yet he was still free walking the streets because of a broken justice system influenced by DEI -inspired ideology that prioritizes politics over public safety.

07:47

And I'll show you what I mean by this. This was a post on Facebook from Cristina Agallo News, and it talks about, this is just one little link in the chain, but Judge Teresa Strokes, who released

08:03

Brown on a no -cash bail bond, allowing him to go free after being charged with misusing the 911 system.

08:09

That was in January, where he calls 911 claiming a man -made material controlled his body. In July, a forensic mental health evaluation was ordered to assess

08:19

Brown's mental capacity. His evaluation never happened, possibly due to resource shortages, but Brown has a history of criminal behavior.

08:28

2012, he's convicted of assault. 2014, he's arrested for shoplifting. 2016, charged with a felony for breaking and entering.

08:37

He, in 2018, was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. 2020, that was reduced to a misdemeanor.

08:43

Brown was convicted of possessing stolen goods. I mean, this is crazy. Arrested for resisting a traffic stop.

08:50

2022, 2023, face charges for trespassing and creating a public disturbance. 2024,

08:57

Brown was arrested for assaulting a transit officer in Charlotte. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in jail with credit for time served.

09:04

And this is the judge who was light on him. I mean, I don't even know what to say.

09:11

Like, it's just insane that this guy was even out there publicly walking around, but he was, and the mainstream media was pretty slow on reporting this situation.

09:23

So when they did start reporting, which was really in the last two days, many outlets failed to even mention

09:29

Erna's name. Instead, the focus was on accusations that political conservatives were using the tragedy to criticize the

09:37

Democrat Party's leniency on crime. Here's an example of that, by the way, from the AP. You can see the headline is

09:43

Charlotte leaders criticized over killing of Ukrainian woman as Trump and MAGA target another

09:48

Dem city. So who's the victim in that, right? The Democrat city of Charlotte, not the person who actually got murdered.

09:55

So kind of a twisted way to even view that. But by Lyle's, the mayor issued an initial statement that did not mention

10:04

Erna at all. Instead, it focused on homelessness and mental health. She said, we will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health.

10:12

So I guess there's no, there's no solution. If you're looking for a solution and all this, there is none.

10:19

And it is some people fall through the cracks. I'm gonna stop there. I mean, and we can keep going, but I mean, you initially, just without even diving too deeply, see there is clearly a problem on the governmental level here that someone like this is even out in public with the ability to harm someone.

10:42

And I think that's what is at least one of the things, probably the main thing that has people so angry right now. Why was this guy riding the

10:49

Charlotte light rail without like, he's clearly mentally off. He's been in jail.

10:56

Like he's been, he has a violent history of crime. How many other people are like this out there, right?

11:04

I think, and I get that gut reaction. So Matthew, any thoughts? Yeah, absolutely.

11:12

I think, I like how you highlighted in your article about the DEI policies sort of being at fault here.

11:18

And at the end of the day, like one big problem that we who are more right -wing or conservative have about DEIs, it's not just people are like trying to be racist or something.

11:27

You're not just trying to be like, that's like not what's at stake here. What ultimately is at stake is just public safety.

11:36

It's the common good. It's the fact that because of policies like this, you create threats to society.

11:42

And when you create threats to society, people will feel unsafe. And when people feel unsafe, you're limited in doing things.

11:49

And this is what we talk about. Oftentimes we bring up something like anarcho -tyranny. The fact that you cannot do certain things in society that you would be able to do were you to have a more civilized society where evil was punished.

12:05

And that's why we have our civil rulers. They're not only to guide us towards earthly goods and things like that, but they're also to protect us.

12:14

Part of like guiding us towards our good is allowing us to be actually be able to pursue the good. And so when you have certain policies, which are very light and soft on crime, you create a danger for everybody else.

12:26

And that's like fundamentally what it boils down to is it's like a visceral reaction and every like sane person,

12:33

I wanna say, because there are many other people that are more than willing to overlook things like this under the guise of wanting to be very open, very progressive, very, you know, very egalitarian in certain ways where they almost, you know, they wanna be seen as a virtuous person.

12:50

A part of being a virtuous person is being as egalitarian as possible. A part of being as egalitarian as possible is if you see certain trends and statistics around crime and they come out in a way that you don't like, you blame everybody but the people that do it.

13:04

And in doing that, you're, you know, because, you know, if you see certain people doing certain things, who do you wanna blame and all that?

13:12

And so they wanna blame the system. They wanna say, oh, we're not like this. And it's all under the guise of publicly appearing virtuous.

13:20

And so it's inherently selfish and it threatens public safety and things like that.

13:26

And so I kinda wanted to make that point is that in pushing back against like DEI policies or things that are very soft on crime, it's not out of hatred that anybody does it.

13:38

As a matter of fact, part of this is taking Christ's command to love your neighbor and actually applying it in practice because you want there to be safe.

13:48

You wanna have like safe spaces, obviously not safe spaces in like the liberal sense, but like actual areas where you don't have to fear for your life.

13:56

There will always be evil in the world. There will always be depravity out there. You cannot prevent every single crime.

14:01

But I mean, like, come on, come on. This isn't like a guy that did something one -off. He has a very clear track record.

14:07

And so at the end of the day, this is why conservatives and right -wingers beat on the drum of law and order is because of things like this.

14:15

And I think that any sensible person would be able to see and understand that. But unfortunately today, we have a plague of unsensible people.

14:24

Kim Traveler mentions toxic empathy here. I think that's a good - Good point, yeah.

14:30

Yeah, yeah, there's a toxic empathy. I actually saw one of the local news stories. I think it was an NBC affiliate. And it said, this is before the mainstream got involved, that it highlighted some posts on Facebook from this activist in Charlotte who was saying we have a mental health crisis.

14:46

That's how they framed the whole thing. And the mayor kind of did that too, that that's the issue that we really have.

14:51

And well, I guess some people are just gonna have to be sacrificed to that. They'll just die because we don't have the proper resources,

14:59

I guess, to solve mental health. But this is sin, this is evil.

15:04

That's one of the things that it seems like we have lost touch with in society. Everything is clinical and it's some kind of a disorder.

15:15

It's categorized in a psychological way and not seen as what it actually is.

15:22

It's evil. It's coming from a very dark place. This guy might've been talking to demons.

15:28

I read something that said that he thought that Erna was controlling his mind. So he wanted to kill her because she was controlling his mind.

15:39

Go ahead. Well, I mean, let's just even grant all of the mental health talking points.

15:45

You can diagnose the problem all that you want, but if you go to a doctor and he does scans on you and he's like, there's cancer here, there's cancer.

15:54

And you go, okay. And instead of prescribing you chemotherapy or prescribing you this or that or whatever, he just looks at you and he just keeps telling you cancer.

16:02

There's cancer here. You go, okay. I don't wanna have a life -threatening disease.

16:07

What should I do? And he ad nauseum just keeps, it's cancer. You have to do something.

16:14

And I don't think that a lot of these people want to do anything. I think there's a sense in which many of these politicians and activist groups are almost content to live in society like that as long as they can just diagnose it as mental health.

16:29

And then instead of doing something about it, they just advocate for certain resources or whatever. They only seek to do purely preventative measures to prevent another case from happening like this, rather than looking at what did just happen and seeking to amend it in the best possible way.

16:43

Because I guarantee you, they're not gonna want a strong prison sentence for this man or anything like that.

16:49

They're gonna wanna have some more leniency here. And so I think that many of these people, even if we concede, oh sure, there's a mental health issue here, they're not gonna wanna do anything about it.

16:59

And that's a problem. It's a sort of contentment living in a society like that. And what we've been trying to say is, we don't have to live like this.

17:07

It's not necessary. We have the tools to do so. We can make this work. We don't have to live like this.

17:13

But I mean, people don't have the will to actually implement anything like that. Continuing on with the piece.

17:22

Watching the actual footage, seeing Erna cry as blood gushed from her neck, passengers walking past her without a word and hearing

17:29

Brown coldly, seemingly say, I got that white girl, is enough to make any person's blood run cold.

17:36

As a father of a little girl, I could not help but think, what if that were my daughter? I know this much.

17:42

My daughter will not be riding a train alone in Charlotte, not if I can prevent it. And what about Erna's own father,

17:49

Stanislav Zarutsky? He cannot even attend the funeral as a man fighting age in Ukraine.

17:56

He is prohibited from leaving the country during its war with Russia. What must he be feeling knowing his daughter fled a war zone for safety only to be senselessly murdered in the

18:04

US? There are many difficult questions in moments like this. Erna came to America as a refugee because it was supposed to be safer than Ukraine.

18:13

She was working as a line cook at Zabiti's Pizza. She was studying English at a community college and dreamed of becoming a veterinary assistant.

18:22

Why did God allow her life to end in such a tragic and brutal way? Maybe we'll stop there. That's a good question to ask first.

18:29

Why did God allow it? I think any tragedy, this always comes up as one of the questions, and sometimes it's the first one.

18:37

I still remember the first time I experienced a tragedy that really hit me.

18:44

I had a friend, he was actually older than me, but he used to do evangelism, and we would go out all the time and do evangelism.

18:49

He had three daughters, and I was working. It was a fall day. It was in October, October 24th, and I took off work.

19:00

Police came to the door that morning, said what happened, and my dad was the pastor. So my dad had me come with him.

19:07

So we went in, and I remember I was so shocked that these three girls, and at the time, none of them professing to be

19:14

Christians. He was a Christian, but they had a religious background, but not active.

19:21

And within, I would say, about five minutes of my dad walking in, and he was, I think, the first one on the scene after the police, they immediately started asking, why did

19:29

God let my dad die? And he died in a car accident on his way to work. And later on,

19:36

I actually found the guy who had crashed into him, and he was not a good guy. Like you just see from his Facebook, he wasn't a good guy.

19:42

But he died instantly, and it was like he was, he had so much to live for. I still don't know the answer to why specifically that moment

19:52

God took him, but I think the older you get, the more life throws all kinds of things like that at you.

19:59

You're gonna come up with a lot of situations where you don't exactly know, and your mind does try to grab for some kind of an explanation.

20:07

Something like this that's so national and so tragic, where it just seems so senseless.

20:13

A lot of people are asking for explanations right now. Why did this guy, who's such a terrible person, why did he, why is he walking, and this girl is dead?

20:25

So, I mean, this gets into what we've been talking about, the attributes of God, though. So, Matthew, you wanna give a shot at that?

20:32

Yeah, it's definitely a bit hard for me to, like, you know, to give any, like, explicit answer of, oh, why does

20:38

God allow these sort of things? And why does God, who is sovereign and provident, you know, sovereign over all things, why does he not only permit, but ordain such things to come to pass?

20:50

And at the end of the day, all we can really say is that all that God does is the most wise thing that he could have done, and what he ordains and upholds, because God upholds and sustains all things, even if you don't wanna, like, have the idea of God, you know, like, decreeing that this would happen, and even though all

21:09

Christians have some degree of a doctrine of providence, you still have to concede that God allowed that person to exist to do that.

21:17

He allowed the situation to remain and unfold in the way it did, having every means to be able to prevent it while not doing it.

21:23

And at the end of the day, it is a mystery, but words of comfort that I always go back to in the scriptures is in Genesis 50, verse 20, where Jacob tells his brothers, what you meant for evil,

21:35

God meant for good. Now, the problem with us as fallen creatures, as people that want and desire to know all things is we wanna go, okay, what you meant for good,

21:45

God meant for evil. Jacob finally was able to, or no, not other way around, I don't wanna blaspheme, what you meant for evil,

21:51

God meant for good. Jacob, in that moment, he knew what they meant for evil and how God brought about good.

21:57

Why can't we know? Why does God not tell us? And at the end of the day, it's just, there's a sort of Christian duty that you have to have this contentment with not knowing everything in the moment.

22:11

You will not always know everything. It's been four years now since my sister passed away, and do

22:18

I know why God had that happen? I don't know. Will I ever know? I'm honestly not sure, but what

22:24

I can do is I can trust that God in all that he does, in the fact that he sustains and upholds all things, he has a purpose behind all things, even if it's beyond my own human comprehension.

22:36

And this notion that in order for it to be just, we have to know is in itself, it's absurd.

22:43

Of course, to us, we think, oh yeah, we should know. We have a right to know, but what right do you have to know why

22:48

God does all of these things? It sort of reminds me of Romans 9, where Paul speaks about how

22:56

God goes to the, God says to the clay, who are you to have a right over me, the molder?

23:01

Or like, what right do you have? So at the end of the day, it's difficult to answer. What we can rest on is that God is a wise

23:08

God. All that he permits and decrees is for an ultimate good, as it said, and we simply, we can't know the reasons and purposes behind why

23:18

God permits and allows certain things to occur and why he sustains and upholds all things as they do.

23:25

But we can always take comfort and rest in the character of God and like looking in the face, the problem of evil.

23:32

Yeah, I'm reminded of Abraham when he's reasoning with God about Sodom and whether God is going to destroy

23:40

Sodom. And Lot, of course, lives there. And he says in verse 25, far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous should be as the wicked, far be it from you, shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

23:55

And 26, so the Lord said, if I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

24:01

And then of course they go on. And the end of the story is Sodom is wicked enough. Sodom, they couldn't even find 10 righteous, so God destroys it.

24:11

But there's, I think Abraham is an insight there into God's character.

24:16

He's the judge of all the earth. His ways are veiled from us.

24:22

For Abraham, they would have been veiled had he not had that conversation with God. He didn't know how many, he thought there were more righteous in the city than there were.

24:28

He was more optimistic, but no, God actually judged the city because of this, because of the,

24:35

I mean, and there's reinterpretations, but obviously we know it was because of homosexuality primarily and just general debauchery.

24:44

And that's who our God is. He does the right thing. And from an eternal perspective, he sees like the rat maze.

24:52

And we can't see beyond the next turn, but he can see the whole entire thing. And no one gets away with anything.

24:58

So not even Mr. Brown in this case. Going on with the piece.

25:05

Then there is the broader question. What are we supposed to do in the face of a justice system that's broken? We can try to protect our families, but how is it acceptable that someone with a long, violent criminal history and clear mental instability is allowed to roam freely, able to target our most vulnerable at any moment in any public place?

25:21

On my podcast today, I said that the only moral response to the crime crisis in our inner cities must involve a multifaceted approach.

25:28

We need increased police presence, real welfare reform, access to low and middle skilled jobs and deliberate Christian missions effort.

25:35

People like Brown should feel the weight of moral and social pressure from every direction long before they ever reached the point of committing such evil.

25:42

Erna Zaruzka's death was preventable, but at every level, individuals guided by destructive ideologies made decisions that allow

25:49

Brown to remain free. Free to murder a young woman who my own daughter may resemble one day. It is right to remind ourselves of God's sovereignty.

25:58

It is right to remember our responsibility to protect our families and to work toward a just and orderly society. But in moments like these, it is even more important to remember

26:05

God's justice. No one truly gets away with anything, not to Carlos Brown, not those who enabled him.

26:11

And then Psalm chapter one, verses five through six says, therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

26:17

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish. And so that's the judge that you aren't able to bribe.

26:24

It doesn't operate on DEI policies. And I do take comfort in that, that when you have senseless injustices like this, you know that ultimately

26:33

God's going to intervene even if it's after this life. So we have to be oriented towards heaven.

26:39

And I think if we're not oriented towards heaven, this kind of stuff can wreck people's faith. Not that there's any other good answers out there, right?

26:46

Because what faith belief system has any answer for evil? I mean, what it's purposeless in atheism or Eastern religions, it's just a mirage.

26:55

There's really, it's an illusion. There's no evil or, you know, evil wins. You know, we don't, the final destination is not determined.

27:05

God is not actually in charge and evil can win. I mean, which system do you want, right?

27:11

I mean, we believe the Bible teaches that God is in charge and ultimately there's a judgment day and everything will be made right.

27:19

So that's who we have to have faith in. But this does really train wreck people more than any other question,

27:25

I think. So it's worth giving some thought to. And this leads me into the other question which

27:32

I'll pitch to you, Matthew. Since the PCA is very strong on the spirituality of the church, maybe not as strong as the

27:40

OPC, but I'm pretty sure they're pretty strong on it. And during the George Floyd debacle in 2020, there were a lot of churches, including some

27:49

PCA churches, that that following Sunday and sometimes in the Sundays after, they had special services.

27:57

They highlighted the racial inequities and what they saw as a racially motivated killing of this man.

28:06

Of course, we know more now. We know that this was a fentanyl overdose and so forth from the autopsy, but this was something that they got involved in because they said it was a justice issue.

28:16

And now we have a situation where it's very cut and dry. There really aren't any questions, unlike in the

28:24

George Floyd case where there were some. There really aren't any with this. What do you think is the responsibility of a pastor this

28:30

Sunday, especially pastors who would have waited on the George Floyd stuff? What I would say for something like this is,

28:42

I don't know if there's a particular obligation to all the time speak about something like this occurring.

28:48

It's not as if it's a moral duty, but if it is something which is pressing multiple congregants or something that the pastor feels is on and it's hard to bring up, of course, that should be spoken of.

29:00

But this is different than the George Floyd thing, of course, because what our culture values and esteems and thinks about is this sort of worship of this civil rights sort of religion where racial inequality and injustice only goes one way, it doesn't go the other.

29:23

And so because people are molded and formed and catechized by this sort of thing, which permeates all of society, a normal person, when they see this, they'll be like, oh, that's so sad, a murder just happened.

29:36

Whereas when they see the George Floyd situation occur, what immediately comes to mind is racial injustice because that's what they've been trained up in because it's the civil rights religion, basically.

29:49

People have two religions. It's that first and foremost, their personal faith that they were raised on or whatever.

29:55

And secondly, it's the civil religion which has been instilled in them. And so that's why you're gonna have this gut response to the

30:03

George Floyd situation, but most people won't have it to this. And so when it comes to churches, a lot of the churches have just fully ingested this sort of DEI religion, basically.

30:15

And that's why they react in a certain way about the George Floyd incident versus reacting this way with this situation.

30:23

I mean, it's so cut and clear. Of course, the George Floyd thing was five years ago, but all of us know George Floyd, Derek Chauvin.

30:28

Those are just names in our head. We know that. I can't even tell you the name of the girl that got murdered without looking at the article.

30:35

This has barely been talked about. I mean, I've seen it a few times on right -wing Twitter. I've seen a few times in conservative

30:41

Christian circles on Twitter, but that's just not how it goes. And I do think that it's important though, that I don't know,

30:49

I wouldn't say there's an obligation on them, but I would say it would be permissible to speak of this and to pray that justice can be restored in our lands, that we would be able to wake up and that they would pray that the civil magistrates, that those who govern would act in just ways, that they're not willing to just have their particular, very liberal political agenda guide everything, but that they would take into account the people whom they are governing.

31:18

And it very much is the duty of the church to pray for those who rule, those who lead, and even the

31:27

PCA itself, it petitions the government at times. And so there's a lot of questions to consider on like how exactly churches should respond, but I think that a church is very much within their right and freedom to respond to something like this and to pray that there would be peace in our lands because we're just plagued by violence.

31:47

And I mean, it doesn't really help the fact that we have social media and things like that. I saw someone on Twitter, Brian Suave, I don't remember how to say his name is

31:56

French, sorry, Brian, but he had said something about how this is a war on white people. And I think in a sense, like you could very much say that.

32:04

I mean, the guy was like, I got that white girl, I got you. And there's plenty of, Jeremy Carl writes about this in his book that he released last year, but somebody had quote tweeted it basically saying, oh, this is not really true, it's just because we have social media.

32:18

And so these things spread much quicker. But at the end of the day, you can say yes to both points.

32:25

The fact that these things are broadcasted to social media just goes to show that everybody knows what's happening.

32:32

Everyone can see the little things which go on, which have a broad effect. It sends ripple waves, it sends shock waves and things like that.

32:41

And so we just need to be steadfast about that. Not just steadfast in prayer, you should be praying about these sorts of things, of course, but like, think about how are you gonna teach your children?

32:52

How are you gonna teach the women in your life? Before I even knew that we were talking about this, my fiance, she brought it up to me earlier today.

33:00

She's like, yeah, did you see that video of that? I'm like, yeah, it was brutal. And she just was like, I am never getting on public transportation, especially if I'm alone.

33:08

And I'm just like, good, I didn't even need to tell you not to do that. You're not stupid. But yeah, it's horrible, yeah.

33:15

Depending on where you are, there's probably cities where it's fine, but not in Charlotte, right?

33:21

Not in New York City, not in Chicago, right? Not in Los Angeles. Yeah, so I've been seeing that reaction too, that like,

33:30

I think what's going on with the sort of war on white people is there's been a number of similar incidents and people have realized, especially since being blamed after George Floyd for all the problems connected to disparities, people have realized, wait a minute, the system is actually set up to benefit the racial minorities, whether it's in the entertainment industry, even commercials you watch, or if it's the government's handouts and programs that you can get in for scholarships.

34:04

And I mean, the list just goes on and on. There's this whole mechanism and we call this the civil rights regime.

34:11

You could call it the DEI regime. I mean, they're basically, it's basically the same thing.

34:17

And I think people realize that. And having understood that that's what's going on, that despite all of these things, it has not changed the crime rate.

34:28

The crime rate is still bad. In fact, a lot of things are worse than they were before the

34:33

Civil Rights Act. We have out -of -wedlock burgs that have skyrocketed, right? The conditions are no better.

34:40

And I think people see that and they see, it's not just the moment that this guy got out his knife.

34:47

You gotta understand that. It is the whole system that allowed him to bypass justice and get to this point.

34:55

That's what they're looking at. They're looking at judges, they're looking at a mayor, and they see that both of these people seem complicit.

35:02

And I understand that feeling, at least in Charlotte. I do think some of this stuff is more localized. Like it's worse in Charlotte than it is, say, where I live, or if you live in the middle of Nebraska or something,

35:13

I don't think you're gonna have these same problems. Obviously, America is a big place. But if you're living in one of these cities that Donald Trump is threatening to clean up, like I don't see any other mechanism for solving the problem, you know?

35:28

I see guys, there's some guys on X that are trying to say, like, return to segregation and all this kind of, and I'm thinking, like, you're way downstream.

35:36

Like, there's already, you know, basically a segregation that's happened because of forced integration and people leaving these inner city areas.

35:43

This particular girl, though, she's a refugee from Ukraine. She doesn't understand the United States, for one thing.

35:50

And if you look in that, I think it's worth pointing out, if you look on that train, you obviously have the problem of this guy.

35:57

If the justice just came down on him, this wouldn't have happened anyway, right? You don't need to bring in other policies.

36:03

If they just did the job that they have in the city, you wouldn't have had this problem. But everyone's on their phone when she gets killed.

36:12

Like, no one's looking around. It's like no one sees it. No one notices until about a minute and a half later.

36:18

As she's dying on the ground, there's a gentleman that notices and comes and tries to help her.

36:24

And he's also a black guy. And I do wanna point that out to people who are, like, the guy who helped her also happens to be an

36:32

African American or a black guy. So it's not, I think it's worth pointing out these things aren't always cut and dry.

36:38

But yes, if you're gonna think in group dynamics and crime statistics and so forth, there's no question that racial minorities, especially the black population, has a higher level of crime, and including black -on -white crime.

36:53

It's much higher than white -on -black. So what do you do? I mean, you have to make adjustments in your own life.

37:01

I know as a father, and I'm protecting my family, and you're a soon -to -be husband who will likely have children as well,

37:06

Matthew, we have to think through the places our families go, who they're around.

37:13

Doesn't mean we hate other races. It doesn't mean that we don't trust people that are members of other groups and we can't be friends with them.

37:22

It means when there's uncertainties and there's regions where laws aren't enforced and there's populations that tend towards irresponsibility at higher numbers, we are probably going to be more careful or tell our families, you know what, we're not gonna go there or not gonna go there at this time of day or I'm gonna go with you if we go.

37:42

I mean, we take precautions, you know, essentially. So that's,

37:48

I don't know, my two cents on it. We could take some comments. You have anything to add to any of that, Matthew? One thing that you said that was a bit saddening to me was when you were talking about her situation, you said she doesn't understand the

38:02

USA, you know, like about how she's in that situation. It's like, what is a bit saddening to say about that is, you know, we're a first world country.

38:11

Of course, any place you go, even the safest place, you know, there are certain precautions and cultural things you should take into account.

38:18

But like that sort of statement, she doesn't understand the USA. That's like something you say about, you're about to go to like a third world country.

38:25

I know. You know, it's wild to see how like these policies, like it's the third worldification of our country and we don't wanna be like that.

38:36

You know, we wanna have policies and things which protect our citizens. And so the fact that we have to even say that is just, it's wild.

38:46

It's just very, very saddening to see happen in real time as things go on in the future, we can only pray that God would save our country, would make it a safer place again, because you can't fully get rid of crime.

39:03

You can't always just totally eliminate it. That's just the reality of human nature. Even the safest countries in the world will still have, you know, crime, like little bit, but not crazy, but they'll still be there.

39:16

But you can, like, it's not utopian to say you can construct a safe society. It really isn't.

39:22

It very much is, it's possible. So it's sad. I mean, there's common sense things that are universal.

39:29

If you're out in the middle of the Ozarks and there's a sign that says no trespassing, trespassers will be shot, right?

39:36

And you go up that driveway, I mean, it's kind of obvious that's like not a place you should be, but most people don't think of a public transportation system as carrying the same kind of risk.

39:49

And I mean, I was pointing out on my podcast earlier that in New York City, it's like this with the subway. You just don't go on the subway.

39:56

People just know, the locals all know, yeah, you don't go on the subway. It's dangerous. Didn't used to be like that. Used to be able to ride the subway all the time.

40:05

Now, no, I wouldn't want my wife on the subway. I don't want to go on the subway. And it's sad. It's like, that's one of the

40:11

New York City experiences was being able to go on the subway and in a flash you can get to places and now, no, you gotta walk it.

40:20

You gotta take a cab. It's more expensive. It's just, you know, the depravity has gone up and the policies have gotten worse.

40:29

Okay, so we have some comments on all of this. Let's see, which ones do

40:36

I want to, there's a lot of them coming in. So keep bringing them in. The judge and the mayor says cosmic treason are both women violating first Timothy two's prohibition on women in authority leads to dead girls on trains.

40:46

We as a nation need to repent of letting them be in charge. What do you think about that idea that we have to repent of female politicians, authority figures in the political sphere?

41:00

John Knox wrote a book about this. Those are my only - Yeah, the first blast of the trumpet against the, what is it? The great regimen of women.

41:08

Yeah, yeah. It's my, I'm a direct descendant of John Knox technically. So I - Oh, are you really?

41:13

When did you become - I am, I don't know if I've told you that. Yeah, so that was my great grandpa going back and it's, you know, it's a,

41:20

I don't know. That's a funny title for a book, but yes and no. Like I, so obviously these women have not done a good job.

41:29

They have contributed to this murder and probably many others. But I will say there are situations where I think it's not necessarily a sin for a woman to get involved when there are no men.

41:41

And I don't think that's a pastoral office at all. I think it's to the shame of men when that happens in a political sphere.

41:49

I don't think it ought to be the norm for a woman to have to take a law enforcement type of position at all.

41:56

But I mean, I look at it this way, right? So if I have a little 14 month or 13 month old, 13 and a half, whatever.

42:03

And if I'm away from home and someone breaks in my house, I expect my wife to take care of it, right?

42:09

She's gonna use force on the perpetrator. And I don't think that's the way it ought to be.

42:14

I think ideally I should be home. I should be defending the family. I'm the defender. I'm the one that should be using force.

42:21

But if I'm not available, it's up to her. She has to. So I think there are circumstances like that.

42:27

But this isn't one of them. This isn't one of them. Yeah. And if they just enforce the law, this would not be a problem.

42:36

If they had good laws and they enforce them, but they give these kind of people slaps on the hands it looks like.

42:44

Did you have, did you just send me a tweet from Trump? Was that you,

42:50

Matthew? You want me to show it? Hold on. All right.

42:55

Let me see if I can pull it up here. It's an old tweet. I just saw it there. Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violence, crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and Hispanics.

43:05

A tough subject must be discussed. Oh, that's 2013. Wow. That is old. Should I retweet it right now?

43:15

I'm going to like it. And I'm going to just retweet it just to see what happens. Okay. So let's see.

43:24

Dr. Bob says my entire political evolution can be summed up in one photo. The parents in Little Rock in the 50s with the 101st

43:30

Airborne pointing bayonets at them. My sympathies are 180 degrees opposite now. So that's the forced integration.

43:38

I think it was, that was the first time that the National Guard was called by Eisenhower to integrate the schools there.

43:44

Dr. Bob is saying he thinks that that was, his sympathies are the opposite now. Well, we're downstream from that, right?

43:50

So we've seen the social evolution that's taken place or de -evolution since that time.

43:56

And you can also go read the words of people who were warning about this, what would happen. And I think the lesson is you can have social problems and sometimes cures that are proposed are worse than the diseases.

44:09

May be a legitimate social problem, but sometimes the solutions can create further problems that you don't anticipate.

44:15

So you always have to be wise. So, and you just jump in here anytime,

44:21

Matthew. I'm gonna keep looking at comments. This whole incident reminds me of Christ's words, don't throw pearls before swine.

44:29

Some groups should be avoided. Matthew, what are you laughing at? My fiance just crawled out and grabbed something from her purse in the background.

44:39

I'm sorry, I should have turned my camera off. She doesn't want people to know that she's there. No, no, she can't be in the camera.

44:45

Remember, she's a woman or something. She's a woman, it's against first Timothy too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

44:51

Field of a camera. It's so easy to get murdered nowadays, says Michaela.

44:57

Is it? I guess in certain areas, maybe. Don't go to those areas. Let's see, cosmic treason has more.

45:08

Some of the same people are, okay, here's someone who I haven't gone to yet. Matt quotes

45:14

Matthew 10. Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace with a sword. And that's a gun in the 21st century.

45:21

I think you could find that in the Greek, sure. It's a gun. Yeah, there you go. I don't mind that.

45:27

You should have a gun. Prayers for John, if he picks one of my spicier comments.

45:37

Careful, John, I wanna get ordained one day. I'm trying, I'm thinking about that as I'm choosing comments.

45:43

I'm not expecting you to weigh in on all of these necessarily. No, I know, I'm just playing. My words are mine only and they are not a reflection on Matthew at all.

45:51

I disavow bad things, everybody. We disavow bad things. We want a society where everyone lives in harmony and there's no problems, no sin, but we know that's not gonna happen until Jesus reigns.

46:04

So until that time, we have to deal with sin. That's the reality. And all right, well, we've been going about 46 minutes.

46:11

We've gotten to most of the comments here. There's actually other articles on the website that I thought we could go to, but I feel like it would be kind of an awkward transition to jump from this to the book review of lies my therapist told me.

46:25

Hey, mental health, there you go. Oh, you gave me, okay, all right. I'll just point it out, guys.

46:30

There is a good article here by Amy Simmons and she's a really good reviewer of books.

46:36

She's like the official truth script book reviewer of lies my therapist told me. So if you want the too long, didn't read, you can read this particular book.

46:45

And I actually have been trying to get the author on the podcast and I haven't had no success yet, but I'm hoping to get, who is the author?

46:53

It's Gifford, I think is his name, but he's from Master's Seminary, Greg Gifford. And the book is called lies my therapist told me why

47:01

Christians should aim for more than just treating symptoms. And so she gives a sort of, it's actually pretty detailed encapsulation of what that book is about.

47:14

So go check it out. Truth Script's got a lot of good things on it. We got a book about the trans shooter.

47:20

See, we went from that to this, like it's, maybe that's what inspired the comment about it's so easy to get murdered nowadays, these days.

47:31

And there's a article on the ELCA, that's the Evangelical Lutheran Church's downfall, how to prevent your church from following from Richard Henry.

47:41

Have you ever been to an ELCA church, Matthew? I have not, no. You know, I've never actually attended a

47:48

Lutheran church period. So how do you know that you will, like you're not Lutheran if you haven't tried it?

47:54

I've read it. I've read the stuff and I was not persuaded, but yeah.

48:00

I almost became Lutheran at one point, so. I could see that. I could just see that for some reason.

48:08

Did you almost become other things too, or just Lutheran? Like just Lutheran.

48:14

And then I looked into Anglicanism, but now I'm a happy, happy Presbyterian. I love that you're keeping it

48:20

Protestant. I was expecting you to say EO or something like that. Oh, I mean, like I looked at, I mean,

48:25

I studied Catholicism or whatever, but never inquired into it after actually reading the

48:31

Protestant stuff. But you know, no, I stay Protestant. I will be Protestant until the day

48:36

I die. And then I'll remain Protestant in eternity. In heaven, yeah, where everything's Protestant.

48:42

So I did go to an ELCA church a few years ago. And the pastor,

48:49

I remember this, he thanked, or he prayed in his sermon that the sea levels, like God would protect the people in port cities because the sea levels were rising because of global warming.

48:58

So it was part of his prayer. And I was like, I mean, I never would have thought to pray for that. People are, people dying?

49:04

Is there a threat out there? But that's what he thought there was. And he said something else. I forgot what it was.

49:09

It was super liberal in the sermon. There was no gospel, very aging congregation. And I remember this lady comes up to us after the service and she,

49:19

I don't know how we got on this topic. She was from Germany, but she just starts telling us how she was in Hitler youth when she was a child.

49:26

And she remembers the allies bombing her city. And she had to go get all the dead animals.

49:32

There were dead animals everywhere. It must've been some serious bombing. I don't know if she was outside of Dresden or where she was, but she had to go pick up the animals because they were eating the animals that had died as a result of the bombing.

49:43

And I just thought it was just a weird, I'm talking to someone who was a Nazi, but at the same time, the pastor was super lefty.

49:52

And that's the ELCA. There you go. That's my impression of the whole ELCA right now. Well, right. We, yeah, well, right.

50:01

Yeah, it's communism, but you got your Nazis there too, you know, whatever. So a beautiful church though.

50:08

They had nice stained glass. I'm more of a Missouri synod guy though. If I'm gonna go to a Lutheran church, I want it to be

50:14

Missouri synod. I want it to be conservative. ELCA is not at all.

50:20

A lot of Missouri synod isn't now, but some of them still are. So there you go. There's John's opinions on Lutheranism.

50:28

Well, we can probably end the podcast. I just wanna remind everyone, we are having a retreat coming up the weekend of Matthew's wedding.

50:35

So if you're not gonna be at Matthew's wedding, you should come musicandmasculinity .com. It's the 25th through the 28th of this month.

50:43

You can still sign up. There's still time. Best Men's Retreat that is east of the Rocky Mountains. Look forward to seeing you there and God bless.