Architects of a Political Third-Way for Evangelicals: Carl Trueman- "Republocrat"

Conversations, that matter podcast, I'm your host, John Harris. We're gonna talk about this book today, Republicrat Confessions of a Liberal Conservative by Carl Truman. I think if he wrote it today, it would be super controversial probably, and he would have a lot of attention given to this particular book.

But when he wrote it in 2010, that was not the case. And so this is gonna be part of a series I'm doing, and it's not sequential. It's not gonna be like there's another installment tomorrow and next week.

But during the course of the year, I'm gonna talk about some other figures, Tim Keller being one that I've talked about before, but we'll talk about maybe one of his books, Generous Justice, perhaps. We'll just go through it and give you some quotes and talk about it.

We might talk about Stephen Nichols' book, Jesus Made in America. I'm not sure yet. But there was a string of books that came out that when they came out in the early 2000s up until about 2015 or so, they weren't that controversial because it just wasn't a fight in evangelicalism like it is today.

The political fight that's going on, of course, underpinning this is a theological fight, really, it's not ultimately political, but that's the form I would say that it's been taking. And that's from the outside optics and the interests that are involved from the world's perspective, they tend to be more political interests.

And of course, with everything that's happened politically, especially within the last two or three years, this fight within evangelicalism has really ramped up. And so books like this, which once, well, today would be blamed perhaps for the drift that's happening in evangelicalism and they would be identified as Trojan horses at the time that they were written, they were not identified.

In fact, Michael Horton endorses this book. It says on the front cover, will delight, frustrate and encourage healthy discussions that we have needed for a long time. You have, interestingly enough, Michael F. Bird from Crossway Bible College in Australia endorsed this.

For those who don't know, if you haven't been listening to this podcast for any length of time, I've played some clips from Michael Bird. I've showed some tweets from Michael Bird. I mean, he is well entrenched on the left wing side of the evangelical.

If you wanna even call what he believes evangelicalism, I don't even know. I played a clip of him talking about, I believe the individual's name was Fleming Rutledge, but it was a clip with Walter Strickland at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He used to come and speak when I was a student there. And he talks in this interview, you can find the clip probably on my YouTube channel. There's some other places as well, but it's for the kingdom diversity department.

And he says that, well, we need the womanist perspective essentially. So I'm gonna have my students read her so they can understand from a woman's perspective what the book of Romans says. That's a good sample of where Michael Bird is at.

And so I just wanted to let you know that as well. It's interesting to me, but we're gonna go through the content of the book, not just, we're not talking about those who, we're not putting those who endorse this book on trial or anything.

I just, I find it interesting sometimes the kind of people who do endorse books and why they think it's worthwhile. And particularly actually the introduction to this book from someone who considers himself a conservative, is conservative.

And I'll show you what he has to say in the introduction to the book. But all that to say, this will be part of a series that I am titling or a theme that I'm titling Architects of a Political Third Way for Evangelicals, Architects of a Political Third Way for Evangelicals.

And I would see Carl Truman as someone who helped lay some of this groundwork at a crucial time in 2010. This is before it was really noticeable. It wasn't that popular yet, but he was saying things that are now being said and now they're being identified at least as, oh, that's where some of this left wing, this leftward drift is coming from.

Now, Truman is known for right now being a conservative's conservative by people I don't think who've read all of his work. They've read his book, his most popular book I believe now, which is Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, which I've read.

And I am gonna give you some thoughts hopefully later this week on that book. Probably it won't be long, but I have, there's a lot of good things I have to say about it, but I also, there's some concerns and I think it would be helpful, this reason I'm doing things in the order I'm doing them, I think it's helpful to do this book first, this Republic crap book just to help, I don't know, I don't know why I thought that.

I guess maybe to help people maybe understand that, hey, look, some of the things I might say about Rise and Triumph, it's not just like I have an ax to grind with Carl Truman. I'm gonna bring up some other things on this podcast.

I've talked about Carl Truman a number of times. I've showed you things that he said about Grove City that just seem confusing at best, or just shielding the school and the school's honestly poor, unwise, and wrong decisions at worst.

And commending Karen Swallow Pryor, I've shown you things from Carl Truman that really make you scratch your head. And I've wondered for a while, because he has this reputation, well, how can this be?

Well, reading this book has helped me figure out, oh, that's why. And so we're gonna talk about that. And he's in the, I believe he's in the OPC, if I'm not mistaken, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

I probably should have checked that out before I did this. So I will, let me see if I can look that up real quick, just because I don't wanna speak out of turn. I think he was at least part of the OPC.

But he teaches at Grove City College, and he did teach at Westminster Theological, yes. He was a pastor, actually, let's see, ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church,.

So I was right about that.

Okay, so before we get to that, though, let's talk about this. I want to let everyone know two things. One, announcement, the Adirondack Men's Retreat with Dr. Russell Fuller is in full gear. We got a place, we got a price, and I'm just gonna let people know up front, I was planning this as something primarily for the church that I attend, but I thought, well, I'll include some people from the podcast, and what I received has surprised me.

A lot of people really wanna come, and that could be just because there isn't a lot of this. Men's retreats have gone the way of the dodo bird. Men's ministries have kind of gone the way of the dodo bird, and it's also possible that there's not a lot of options available for good, solid conferences.

I saw that when I was in Texas with Joel Webb and Adi Robles, the people that drove so many miles to, I just thought, why, why are they coming so far? And I think there's a demand out there, and it hasn't really been tapped into.

There are some quote-unquote alternatives, right? There are a few alternative conferences, but I think one of the issues is most of the people that are platformed there, they're not naming names, they're not saying really, really outlandish truths or real truths, but considered outlandish in the eyes of the world, they play it safe more.

And so having someone like a Dr. Russell Fuller, who just doesn't care what people think, he cares what God thinks, and he's made that quite clear, he actually has skin in the game, he's sacrificed for it, I mean, it's attractive, I think.

That's a man's man, that's a man who really understands what it is to sacrifice for the Lord and to be tough. That's tough, those are tough decisions, and I will tell you this, I don't care if people are mad at me for it, it's just the truth, the vast majority, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people on the conservative, quote unquote, evangelical side, I'm not talking about the obvious social justice warriors, I'm saying on the conservative side in evangelicalism tend to have a problem with cowardice, it's just true.

And I'm not putting much definition to that other than you can see the sacrifices that Dr. Russell Fuller has made and you can compare what he's done and what he's been willing to say and who he's been willing to label a false teacher to what others are unwilling to say.

And there are situations, obviously, where it may be, especially for a temporary period of time, it may not be advisable to say certain things. I get all that, I'm just telling you, after years of now being in this, that's just my analysis of evangelicalism is very similar to my analysis of mainstream political parties and politics.

Most of the Republicans are not very brave people and it's the same, unfortunately. Dr. Russell Fuller is totally, I mean, it's, I'm trying to think of a political figure, maybe Josh Hawley, I don't know, someone who's brave, who just does the right thing, doesn't care, I don't know.

But Dr. Russell Fuller is certainly someone of character and I think it's someone people wanna hear from. And so I have received lots of messages from people in the Midwest, the Deep South, they wanna come and it's a bit of a sacrifice.

And I feel, I've been thinking about it because I thought, man, this thing is, it's two nights. It's one full day and then there's Sunday morning and there's Friday afternoon. So it's like two days, two nights.

And I'm like, man, if people are coming that far, I wanna try to see if there's something else I can do here. And I don't know, I'm still thinking through that, if there's something else in the area that I can plan as a maybe after Sunday or that Friday morning or something like a pre thing.

I'm not sure yet. I'm thinking through that, but the retreat itself is going to be Friday afternoon you come and Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon, I guess, you leave. So we'll have Sunday breakfast and then that's it.

That's how it's planned right now. Well, Sunday breakfast, we'll have a service and then that's it. But gauging from some of the support that has come in or at least the interest level, this may be something that we can do also in the future.

And we'll see what happens. I'm gonna see what happens with the retreat. I've been given kind of the okay to have as many as 100 people. So I gotta cap it there. I can't go over that because the facilities won't allow for it.

And I couldn't find facilities that were bigger. So this could go quick. I would just recommend go to the info section, go to the website, sign up so that your name is there and you can have a guaranteed spot at the retreat.

The deadline is October 1st, cost is $184. You get all your meals, you got two nights of sleep. I think if someone, I've had already one person reach out. If you wanna donate to this effort and if you've wanted to donate to some of my efforts, but you need a 501c3, this is a good way to do it.

You can donate to Grace Bible Church and I have the address there. You can just send a check to them and that will help. We may, if we get enough, we may just be able to even start to minimize the cost.

And if cost is an issue, that's something that you can email me privately about and we can talk about maybe how to get you there and all that, but it is in the Adirondacks. So the closest airport is probably Albany, I would think, Albany Airport.

And then if you just let me know you're coming and we can try to, I can try to do my best to coordinate rides and that kind of thing. It may be possible that you might have to get a rental or figure out another arrangement of some kind, but I will do my utmost.

I just give you my word on this to try to coordinate and arrange rides as much as I possibly can. There might be limitations depending on how many people come though. So we'll figure that out as we go, but if you wanna come and you know that you can come and this is something that you can commit to, then I would commit because I think it's gonna fill up pretty quick.

And by the way, I had a message from A .D. Robles. A .D. Robles is coming. Now he, I don't know what I'm gonna have him do yet. If anything, maybe we'll just let him relax, but I might have, we might do like a panel thing.

I don't know yet, but A .D.'s gonna be there. Dr. Russell Fuller's gonna be there. We'll see who else ends up coming, but it should be fun. It's in the Adirondacks. It's at Camp of the Woods in Speculator, New York, and all the instructions are there in the info section if you want to sign up for this.

I also wanna let you know about Quipping the Persecuted. Quipping the Persecuted is a ministry for Nigerian Christians that helps aid them with things that they need, so food and water and that kind of stuff, but also just equipment like bulletproof vests, body armor, that kind of thing, like walkie-talkies, some gear that will help protect them from terrorist attacks because that's happening an awful lot there against Christians from Muslim factions.

And so it's an organization that I believe in and I know the person who runs it. And so if you're looking for organizations to donate to, because let's face it, you were donating to Crew or some other organization and they went woke and you're looking for alternatives, I would suggest checking out Equipping the Persecuted.

Their website is equippingthepersecuted .org. Now, let's get into the issue at hand. We're gonna talk about this, this book, Republicrat Architects, and my series title is Architects of a Political Third Way for Evangelicals, and I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna blow up this whole thing so you can see what I'm talking about here.

And that's Carl Truman there on the right, that's the book, and this came out in 2010. In fact, if you go to Amazon, I'm gonna go there right now, Republicrat, it doesn't have a whole lot, let's see here, it has 46 ratings, 46.

Now, if you look up like Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, how many ratings does that have? It probably has thousands, let's see, yeah, 1 ,641. So Carl Truman wasn't as known for this, he wasn't as big of a name at that point, but this is the book that he did write, and I don't know to what extent it's influenced things, but I would be, I think, naive to think it hasn't influenced anything, especially given the people on the back who have endorsed it in some way.

You have Professor of Church History at Reform Theological Seminary, Andrew Hoffhecker, you have Tina Moore, Dean of Breakpoint Centurions Program, Derek Thomas, Professor of Theology at Reform Theological Seminary, there's Peter Lilleback, President of Providence Forum, author of George Washington's Sacred Fire.

It's interesting that Peter Lilleback, it's just interesting to me. I thought, it wasn't Peter Lilleback, I should probably look this up too, I thought he was, let's see, Westminster, the President of Westminster, if I, President and Professor of Historical Theology, yeah, President at Westminster Theological Seminary, so yes, yes.

So yeah, there are some influential people who have heard this, and I, you know, this is, and Carl Truman's now a big name, and so I think it's important to know kind of what he believes, or at least did believe in 2010, and I think, based on things I've seen, on even the last year or two, he probably still believes a lot of this stuff.

So that's part of the reason we're going over it, and doing it before I talk about Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, and let's see, what else? I'm trying to think what other introductory remarks I have, not really many, but for those who don't know, Carl Truman, now you know.

Now, here's what Peter Lilback writes in the foreword to this particular work. He says, here's a scholar who relishes the writings of Karl Marx, but who is inherently, intrinsically, and immutably committed to the Reformation spirit of Martin Luther and John Calvin.

So I want you to think about this. A scholar who relishes the writings of Karl Marx, but inherently, instinctively, and immutably committed to the Reformation spirit of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Well, isn't that what we've seen since 2000, I don't know, 14, 15, 16, and then really ramping up in 17, 18, 19, and then super ramping up in 20.

Isn't that what we saw? It was people who claimed to be reformed theologically, but were somehow politically on the left. It was very confusing for a lot of people, and that's basically what Peter Lilback says about Carl Truman.

It's like, hey, and Carl Truman included it in the introductions. Carl Truman's not running away from this. Yeah, relishes the writings of Karl Marx, and Truman has his critiques for Marx, but still relishes the writings of Karl Marx, but hey, he's reformed theologically.

And so Peter Lilback makes this observation about Carl Truman. And it's interesting, there's even a critique of what Carl Truman writes in Peter Lilback's endorsement or his forward to the book, because he talks about how Carl Truman can overstate his case and things like that.

It's just, I was like, this is kind of a weird introduction or forward, I should say, but that's a part of the book. And so then you have, I'm gonna just give you what Carl Truman says about, oh, I remember what I was thinking of.

Let's see here. Gospel Coalition, Republicrat. I was trying to remember, and now it's come to my head, that this book was actually highlighted at the Gospel Coalition in 2011 by none other than Kevin DeYoung.

That's right, June 23rd, 2011, Kevin DeYoung talks about this book. So why don't we wait until, maybe we'll get to this, if we have time at the end, I'll just read for you his conclusion. This is an important, relentless, interesting little book.

Truman wants Christians to be more realistic about what politics can accomplish and how political ends are accomplished. He wants Christians to stop throwing around words like socialist, fascist, and Marxist willy-nilly.

He wants Christians to show no tolerance for those who draw Hitler mustaches on Bush or turn Obama into Heath Ledger's Joker. He wants Christians to avoid making partisan politics the determination for who's in and who's out in our churches.

And above all, he wants Christians to think more critically and independently about politics. To all this, I say yes and amen, even if along the way I may let out an occasional I can't believe you just said that.

So there's Kevin DeYoung writing for the Gospel Coalition in 2011 talking about this third way book of Karl Truman's. This book that, well, it's not, in my opinion, it's not your typical average, what you'd consider from politically or conservative theologically people, politically conservative and politically theological people because Karl Truman is politically more on the left.

He's had some social issues he agrees with Christians on, but even some of his logic and some of the terms he used and everything, but one of the things, and you saw that in this conclusion by Kevin DeYoung, one of the things you see is this kind of this, can we turn down the rhetoric kind of thing?

And we've seen this at the Gospel Coalition since then. It's been used, it's been weaponized. It's, if you talk about there's Marxism out there, you're just, you shouldn't use those terms. And it's like, yeah, but some people are actually Marxists, right?

And we've been dealing with this for years. This is in 2011, guys. It's 2011, Kevin DeYoung, Karl Truman. So when you wonder, when I've wondered even like, why isn't Karl Truman doing more? Wait, how come Kevin DeYoung hasn't really hit this thing out of the park?

Well, when you look back at some of the things that they wrote not like that long ago, maybe they're changing their minds in some of these things. That's perfectly acceptable. But they were saying things that now if you said them, you would probably be categorized more easily on as being friendly with the left or something like that.

So anyway, Karl Truman complains about being categorized at the time he wrote this, but it's not even close to what's happening now. And so let's talk about the book itself. All right, so we talked about the Gospel Coalition and they noticed it, but I don't know if a lot of other people did, but I think some important influential people saw this book.

Conservative Christianity Does Not Require Conservative Politics

Thesis and purpose. The thesis of this book, that conservative Christianity does not require conservative politics or conservative cultural agendas. Okay, that's what Karl Truman says the thesis of the book is.

Now, it's an interesting thought. Conservative Christianity does not require conservative politics or conservative cultural agendas. I've spent whole episodes ripping stuff like that to shreds, just saying like, look, if you want to find a Christian, you're never gonna find a perfect political outlook.

And the Bible doesn't tell you everything about what kinds of government is the best for certain societies. And it gives you moral principles. You have to apply them. So we're never gonna find a perfect political party so long as men are involved.

We understand that. But if you're looking for a Christian tradition in politics, then the paleo conservative tradition or the Burkean conservative tradition in English and England and America is the closest we have to this.

It rests on Christian assumptions that have made their way through tradition and time into our legal systems and our public mores and all that. So you have this already, but somehow there's a pretending today, like, well, there's these two political views are both secular Christianity transcends them.

And that's it. Well, Karl Truman seems to be more in that vein of thinking. He doesn't, there isn't a relationship between conservative Christianity and conservative politics or a conservative cultural agenda.

Now, of course, Karl Truman is pro-life. He is, I'm gonna show you some things that maybe you'll raise your eyebrow at, but he is pro-life. He is against same-sex marriage. He's pro-traditional marriage, that kind of thing.

But what you would think, that's a conservative cultural agenda, isn't it?

Right?

I would think so. That's part of that, wouldn't it be? But he makes a statement like this. So what are we to take away from this? I mean, it's rhetoric that has been used since he's written this book by many others to try to really squelch support for Trump, Christians getting involved too much in politics, Christian nationalism, right?

All of that.

And so I just find it interesting he's saying this in 2010. Now he says, the primary reason why I agreed to write this book is my belief that the evangelical church in America is in danger of alienating a significant section of its people.

Okay, so his thesis is, hey, look, you can be a conservative Christian. You don't have to believe in those conservative cultural agendas, right? You don't have to believe in that. You don't have to be so gung-ho about like, what would that be, I guess, marriage?

I don't know. You don't have to be gung-ho about that. Well, who is he appealing to? He says it right here. The reason he agreed to write the book, his belief that the evangelical church in America is in danger of alienating a significant section of its people.

Well, who are those people? He says, particularly young people. Through too tight a connection between conservative party politics and Christian fidelity. For example, the use of abortion. For example, abortion.

Listen to this. For example, the use of abortion as a wedge issue and as a clear dividing line between Republican and Democrat parties has the potential to kill intelligent discussion on a host of other political topics.

Well, what about if the Republican party has a platform against abortion and the Democratic party has a platform that enshrines abortion? What about then? That's what we live in. That's what we lived in even in 2010.

But he's saying in 2010 that using abortion as a wedge issue, I mean, come on, that's not really for serious people. Intelligent discussion doesn't use abortion as a wedge issue.

Really?

I mean, is that not connected to a whole view of what life is, valuing life, where divine command comes into play? And I mean, there's a lot of questions that get answered once you answer that basic question.

And to be consistent across the board, politically, if you're pro-life, there's going to be other things that you are also for and against. And I made the point before that it's not like you have all these different political views out there and each individual one is, the Democrats get this one, the Republicans get that one.

And you just keep switching it up because sometimes the Democrats are Christian, sometimes Republicans are Christian. And no, there's actually a little more consistency than that. There's more of a holistic view here.

Conservatives, political conservatives, and this is changing because they're becoming progressive. Their modernity is affecting political conservatism, but traditionally, paleo-conservatives, right? And even some of their descendants have, they are building upon or drawing from a Christian framework that applied to all kinds of things.

That would include their view of the economy. That would include their view of marriage and the household and hierarchies in general and labor relationships and school and governments run healthcare and the environment.

And all these things are connected. Foreign policy, even. All these things are connected in some way. And so it's not like someone who, it's like, well, the Democrats, they'd be really great Christian, a political option for Christians if they just took out that abortion thing.

Well, if you take out the abortion thing, a lot of other things would go, is my point. It's part of fundamental assumptions that we'd have to peel the onion layers back to see. But they've grown into these two different basic, two different political camps.

And that's changing, like I said, I think because it's not that the Republicans are going farther right, they're just trailing along the Democrats and they're becoming more and more secularized and affected by modernity.

And they're where the Democrats were in the 90s for the most part. I mean, they're just trailing. But there was a political philosophy. There still is a political philosophy that took into account Christian understandings of reality.

And that's why Republicans tend to be more pro-life or at least conservative, political conservatives tend to be more pro-life. So he's saying that we gotta get the kids, the kids are leaving. So how do we get them?

How do we keep them? Well, the use of abortion is a wedge issue. We've got to stop doing that. That kills intelligent discussion. Then he says, this is at the end. So that was the beginning of the book.

At the end of the book, he says, the identification of Christianity and its practical essence with very conservative, very conservative politics will, if left unchallenged and unchecked, drive away a generation of people who are concerned for the poor, for the environment, for foreign policy issues.

So there you have it. There you have it. These young people in the church who are or could be in the church, man, if they look at Christians and the Christians are, they don't have the same concern for the poor.

They don't have the same concern for the environment or for foreign policy issues, then man, they'll just leave or they won't stick around. And that's gonna be the end. That'll be horrible for Christianity.

For survival, we need to make sure that we care about those things. So this, I mean, I've heard this so much since then, just talking about current social justice activists in the church. But here's Karl Truman in 2010 making these same kind of statements as if the church doesn't care for the poor.

I mean, look, I've pointed this out many times. It's conservative states like Mississippi that are impoverished but give more to charity than liberal states like Massachusetts and California. It's Republicans that give more to charity than, so don't give me that.

Don't give me that. The environment, I mean, I'll tell you what, the most trashiest places I've ever seen in my life are cities run by Democrats. So don't give me that. Well, it's the Democrats that have, or the liberals or something that, and conservatives just don't care for those things.

Liberals do.

Foreign policy issues. Now he's writing this 2010, so this is probably after the Iraq, well, this is during really the, whatever that was in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I think the young people he's probably talking about were against war.

Well, turn that around. We're in 2022, and now what do young people think about Ukraine and Russia? I mean, there's Ukrainian flags all over the place in my neck of the woods. It's just, it's interesting, that particular issue.

But he couldn't have predicted that, I guess. But it wasn't, I'm skeptical whether or not it was really, this is more complicated than I wanna get into right now probably, but I have a skepticism that it was primarily driven by the need or the desire to go into those places was driven by conservatives.

I think that there was an appetite to punish those or bring to justice those who had inflicted harm on our country in 9 -11. And I think that opportunists, this is such an oversimplification, so I'm getting in trouble probably, no matter how I come down on this right now, but I started it, so I'll finish it, that opportunists, eventually at least, some opportunists were able to take advantage of that spirit and then harness it to some of their own agendas and what they thought would be.

But I really, I think the initial let's go in, it was based on information that we had and the desire to bring to justice people who had just committed a heinous terrorist attack. It was not a let's go nation build.

I don't think anyone started out that way. Anyway, I digress from that. And I think that issue is a little bit funnier than the other two, but it's leftists don't seem to have a problem when it's their war, I'll just put it that way.

A good reputation, he says, with outsiders is after all, a basic New Testament requirement of church leadership. And that general principle should surely shape the attitude of all Christians in whatever sphere they find themselves.

So if we don't have a good reputation as the church with Democrats, Republicans and Democrats, then man, that's bad. So we should be able to transcend this, have a good reputation with both. Here's the thing, Jesus also said though, that if the world hates you, it hated me first.

You can't serve two masters. Rejoice when you're persecuted. I mean, there's all kinds of other things in that book and examples of people who were persecuted that show us, hold on a minute. This is the guy who liked Martin Luther, remember?

It said in the beginning, in the intro, hey, he likes Karl Marx, but he likes Martin Luther or he appreciates things about both. Well, Martin Luther, you don't talk about a political, well, he wasn't a prisoner, but he was certainly hunted for his political views.

I mean, look, that's someone who didn't have a good reputation. Have a good reputation with the papists, he can't. So have a good reputation with the secular religion of social justice, good luck. You're not gonna have one.

So this is wishful thinking. And in 2010, maybe it seemed like you could do that more. This was when Obama was howling around to some extent with Rick Warren. I mean, hey, we can be do this and it's a different world now.

Well, I think in 2010, those who were, I think, who were able to put two and two together and look at the signs of the times, I think they were able to see this at that point. But it's obvious now, this kind of advice from this book doesn't work today.

There's no way you can try your best to have a good reputation in the sense that, hey, he doesn't lie, he doesn't steal, he doesn't, his neighbors, the people who actually know him personally, which is what that's about, what he's quoting, qualifications for elders, the people who actually know you know that you're an upstanding person.

Little bit different than, we gotta make sure that the Democrats think well of us or something. I've seen that one twisted so many times. It says, the gospel cannot and must not be identified with partisan political posturing.

Partisan political posturing. What if the political posturing is we should have the right to preach the gospel? What if that's what it is? So we just wanna share this message and that becomes a political issue.

Guess what? We're very close to that. Some places that's already an issue. Is that partisan political posturing? What if one party says we're for it and one party says we're against it? This book is not intended as a plea for one party or one political philosophy over another.

It is rather a plea for seeing the situation as more complicated and less black and white than is often the case in Christian circles. Now, part of me agrees with this or likes this because I think he wants to get away from ideological thinking.

At the same time, there are some issues that are binary. There are. And you have to take a stand on them. And there isn't a way between, okay, let's give it a modern example that he doesn't get into, but okay, gender is fluid, gender is fixed.

There's no third way, right? There's things like that that are, there's no way. Stealing is wrong. Stealing is okay under certain circumstances, right? There's no third way there. So there's examples of that that make their way into politics that you aren't going to, you have to side with the party that's going to support biblical morality.

And like I've said, if you want to trace out where biblical morality has influenced a political philosophy, it's gonna be in that paleo-conservative tradition. By 1997, Carl Truman says, however, I had switched my allegiance to the liberal Democrats, the party of the center or perhaps center left in British politics.

That is basically where I have remained. That's what he says in 2010. I don't know where he is now, but I think it's important to just let you know that's what he says about himself. This is where he's coming from.

So he doesn't wanna push this on people, but this is where he's at. And before that, he voted conservative. He voted for Margaret Thatcher. He talks about this, but then he thought they got too corrupt.

So he's gonna vote for liberal Democrats, but as we'll see, he actually agrees with a lot of their policies. So, and that's British politics. So, and I would be outside of my area if I start trying to comment on British politics, but here's some good things.

I wanna start off with some good things. Here's some things that Carl Truman says that I just think these are actually good thoughts. These are profound. These are worth thinking about.

Some of these are true.

Here lies the heart of the problem of the new left. Once the concerns of the left shifted from material, empirical issues, hunger, thirst, nakedness, poverty, disease, to psychological categories, the door was open for everyone to become a victim and for anyone with a lobby group to make his or her issue the big one for this generation.

I think that's profound. Now, this might be for Great Britain more than the United States, because I think in the United States, since the second Great Awakening, the left has been, at least since then, has been very ideological in our country.

In other words, ideological, I talk about this in my book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict, which you can get, by the way, on Amazon, or you can go to worldviewconversation .com.

I'll send you a signed copy. I talk about ideological thinking. And to sum it up, it's really this philosophy that reduces everything down to some simple precepts. And so human condition isn't as important as concept and making sure that concepts are applied so that looking at life and thinking, reducing everything down to patriarchy or equality or, I don't know, some kind of oppression, and then everything gets colored in that lens.