News Roundup: MN Shooting, A Coarse Society, Lee Restored, The Woke Rebrand Continues

Conversations That Matter

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our men's retreat this year. It's called Music and Masculinity. If you want to sign up, you go to musicandmasculinity .com.

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It is September 25th through the 28th. It's in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains, Speculator, New York at Camp of the

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Woods. And let me give you a few reasons why you might want to come to this. Number one, the food is outstanding.

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I thought the first time I was going to go, it would be camp food. It's not camp food. It's good food. And the fellowship is incredible.

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We get to do a lot of outdoors things. There's a lot of free time. I plan it that way because I know that conferences are much more, not just fun, but they're much more worthwhile and enriching when you get to spend time with other people, compare notes, spend time with the organizers.

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We don't have a green room. You're going to be with the pastors who are speaking, and we've got great pastors lined up. That's another reason to come.

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We've got Pastor Tim Bushong. He served as not just a pastor, but also as a

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Christian musician for many years, and he's going to talk about the Christian music industry. We've got Pastor Danny Steinmeier, and also

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Mark Steinmeier, his dad, who's the minister of music at his church out in Idaho. They're going to be talking about music.

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And let me tell you something, Mark opened my mind to things that I had not thought of when it comes to music.

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He's going to have a piano there. He's going to demonstrate before all of you the difference between modern music and the classic traditional music.

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And I'm going to be talking about tradition. We've got A .D. Robles there. He's going to talk about work -life balance. My own dad,

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Scott Harris, is going to be leading the Sunday morning service. It's going to be an amazing time. Everyone who comes to our men's retreats loves them, but it is coming up, and you do have to sign up soon if you want to be part of it.

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If you have sons, please bring them. There's kayaking. There's fishing. There's hiking. Some people cycle.

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There's all kinds of things to do, and it's one of the most beautiful, pristine areas in the Northeast. So check it out, musicandmasculinity .com.

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We'll see you there. And welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host,

01:57

John Harris, and I'll tell you what, if it's possible to overdose on zinc and vitamin

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C, I've definitely done it over the last two days. I appreciate your prayers for those who knew

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I was traveling. I have been wiped out the last five days or so, six days.

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I've had this congestion for about two weeks, and it just reached a crescendo on Friday night or into Saturday morning.

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So yeah, I guess it was Saturday morning at 2 a .m., and I woke up with the kind of shivers.

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I was so disoriented. I don't think I've ever had shaking like I did. I didn't know if I was having a seizure.

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It was that bad. And I did the worst thing possible in my delirium.

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I went into the shower, and I thought, I'm cold. I should just turn up the hot water, right? The worst thing you can do.

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So anyway, I got through it. And I'm not trying to play the world's smallest violin here. I'm just saying it's been a little rough, and that's why

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I haven't been able to. I've wanted to. I just haven't been able to put out some of the things that I know I've said are coming and sitting on my computer waiting.

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But I did not want to have another day go by. Even though it's Labor Day, I know it's a holiday for many of you.

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I didn't want to have this day go by without me putting something out there. So we're going to do a news roundup. The topics are fairly easy, so I don't think it should cause a lot of mental fortitude here.

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I don't have a lot of it right now. In addition to everything else, there's a little bit of a cloudiness. But I was encouraged because I talked to a friend of mine night before last, and at the time

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I had a fever. Right now, I don't think I do. It's just more of an overall feeling. That's the technical term.

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It's in the Greek. I don't know. But he said, you don't sound like you have a fever. You don't sound like you're sick. And I thought, okay, maybe

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I'm actually coming through clearly, even though I don't think I am. So that's going to be my hope for this podcast.

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You can even pray for me now that I'll be coming through clearly. And there's a lot of things, even though I said they're easy subjects in a way, they are important subjects.

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And so I appreciate your prayers for that as well, because I don't talk about things that I don't think matter.

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This is conversations that matter. That's the name of the podcast. I named it that way for a reason. So anyway, a little update, though, before I get into everything.

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I did have a great time at the World Right in Front of You conference. Michael Foster is the one who hosted that.

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And it's great to be with other guys who are like minded, who share ministry concerns and Christian values.

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And I was a little concerned because of my ailments that I wasn't going to be able to do it.

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I was short on sleep. I always do this. I pack my schedule way too much. I'm meeting someone for lunch in Nashville.

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I visited with my brother for a little bit in Crossville. I go up to Gainesboro and I meet with some guys there.

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It's like, why did I do that in one day? But I did. And I thought on the way there,

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I thought, man, Lord, please help me because I can't even, I'm coughing,

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I'm sneezing. Something happened though. When I got behind the lectern,

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I didn't even think once about having to cough. I'm not saying the

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Lord did a miracle necessarily. I'm just saying he was very gracious to me. Maybe it was just in his providence, but it is kind of weird that the clouds lifted, the sun came out.

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And then the next day I was back to being sick. So even right now,

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I can already feel a cough coming on. So I may have to use the cough button a few times in this podcast, but welcome to the conversations that matter podcast to those who

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I was able to see out there in Cincinnati area. It was so good to visit with you. And I look forward to coming back at some point.

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And I hope that you can come to the men's retreat. If you are anywhere near the Northeast, or maybe you're even in the

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Midwest or the South and you just drive on up. I know a lot of people do that because we do have the greatest men's retreat that is

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East of the Rocky mountains. I do not claim to have the best one West of the Rocky mountains. I don't know what's out there.

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I'm just, you know, I don't compare, but as far as East of the Rocky mountains and I do pick the

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Rocky mountains, not the Mississippi. It's a little bit of a larger area. I do. That is my claim to fame.

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So you're going to want to come on out. It's going to be a great time in all seriousness. Uh, it's only coming up in a couple of weeks.

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So music and masculinity .com. Uh, I want to start off with jumping into this shooting.

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And I know this is probably for some of you, something you've covered. I know there's been stories out there.

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I only have a few thoughts to add to it. And so, so hopefully if you've already heard from other commentators on this, you can bear with me before we get to other news of the day, but I did want to talk about it.

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So, uh, let's go to this story. I'm going to work off of this story here from the Federalist.

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And this of course is the graphic that is now infamous. And it's a picture of the shooter out there in Minneapolis, looking at themselves in a mirror and staring back is a, what looks to be a demonstrator of some kind of demonic apparition, perhaps.

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And obviously this person was very disturbed and it's by Joy Pullman. Joy Pullman actually writes a lot of really good stuff.

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She says this week, another transgender shoot up of a Christian school provides more chilling evidence that the culture war is a spiritual war.

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The Minneapolis shooters actions and Democrats interpretation of them both demonstrate this. The New York post published excerpts of the shooter's journal posted on YouTube.

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And that included what I just mentioned, as I've written before, she said, Satan worshipers can be starting start to,

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I can't say that word. They're startled that more than many Christians about the connections between spiritual and political beliefs.

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The image is yet another striking testimony from the dark side about the connections between queer ideology and the demonic.

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So our passages in the shooter's journal that read as if they came straight out of the mouth of a demon quote,

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I also love when kids get shot. I love to see kids get torn apart. Pictures of his arsenal show a gun magazine inscribed with the words, where is your

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God? And of course there was so much stuff that came out. It's like overwhelming anti -Christian stuff, uh, anti Jewish stuff.

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6 million wasn't enough. There was Hitler admiration. There was apparently all kinds of things that this person wrote about.

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And you have people filtering into different explanations, right? You have the people who say we have a mental health crisis.

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It's all medication. It's all just biological, uh, or psychological on some level.

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And if we were diagnosed correctly, then we could avoid it. You have the people that, uh, think it's the guns problem.

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Uh, and then of course, I think some of the, what a joy goes over here is focusing on that Democrats who want to say that the prayers don't really mean anything.

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The hopes and prayers don't get anything done. Why don't you actually just go ban guns? Why don't you do something useful?

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And so they ban the tool that's used. And then of course there's a third option or a combination of the three, right?

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And that is what about the fact that there's a spiritual component to this? What if there's actually demonic influence involved in someone, uh, wanting to go kill people because they are

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Christians or because they're Jewish or whatever. So that's, uh, I think what is typically ignored in the mainstream media and it needs to be focused on.

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It needs to be re -centered that there's spiritual dimension to all this prayer. Actually your, your thoughts and prayers, that second part, their prayers is very important.

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If this is actually a spiritual war, is it not? So here's some of the reactions from some leftist types.

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Uh, they got a lot on Twitter. A lot of, uh, I think these are all from Twitter if I'm not mistaken, but here's Maxwell frost.

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These children were probably praying when they were shot to death at a Catholic school. Don't give us your bleep thoughts and prayers.

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Uh, so I don't know how many of these I want to read to you. I wasn't even expecting that language.

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Um, let's see. There's just a lot of reactions that basically say the same thing.

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If prayer worked, a house of prayer wouldn't have just experienced this tragedy says

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Brian, uh, Krasenstein. Yeah. So I guess Christians, if they pray or they, they're not supposed to ever have trials come their way.

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Is that the idea here? That's kind of ridiculous. Uh, so there's just a lot more that could be said about this.

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The only thing I really wanted to say since this has already been analyzed so much is I do think it's worthwhile to have a national national conversation, a local conversation, national conversation, whatever it is about the impact of the demonic, of the spiritual realm on our social fabric.

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Uh, this may even mean just in your church, if you haven't done it yet, you may want to have a meeting about security.

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You may want to talk about what it would look like to ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen. Or at least if it starts to happen, it's stopped.

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I was with, uh, like I said, a bunch of guys over the weekend and I already knew this to be true, but one of them said that look, dozens of shootings have taken place in churches, at least attempts over the last two years, but generally they're stopped in early stages.

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They might make the local news. They don't make national news. And it's because a lot of churches are being vigilant.

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And I know this to some extent because the church security team, for some reason, I'm not on the team, but I get the emails from the team.

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So I don't always read them, but I will get the emails from certain members of the team saying,

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Hey, another one happened. And it almost never is in the national media, but they're, I don't know where they get their info, but they, they somehow have a pipeline where they're getting this information.

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And it's, there are churches targeted all the time. I mean, they're considered soft targets essentially, especially if there's no security there.

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So Christian school, Christian church, uh, you may want to have that conversation. I think it's very important.

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And of course, prayer is important. That's, that is the answer to this. I'm not saying it's the only thing you can do.

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Obviously I wouldn't be saying that if I, I believe church security measures are important, but prayer is of course, uh, very important in this.

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I think, um, in times of affliction and in times when you're targeted, I mean, look at the

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Psalms. What does David do? He talks about his life being people pursuing him, trying to take his life and he looks to God to be his protector.

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So, uh, that's what Christians have always done. That's so I think, uh, what do

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I want to go to next? Maybe I'll just go to this story next. Um, a husband and kids. Oh, sorry.

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I'm reading the URL instead of the actual headline here. So here's the actual headline. This is also from the

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Federalist. This is new September 1st. There's a study that just came out and wouldn't, you know, it having a husband and kids doubles a woman's likelihood of being happy.

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Wow. Who would have, I mean, I, how could you have guessed that? How would you have known this? This mysterious, uh, obvious truth.

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It has been a long feminist trope that marriage and motherhood are garbage shoots to misery for women.

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Feminists, feminists, sociologists. Could we combine those words? Feminologists? I suppose we could.

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Jesse Bernard warned in her 1972 book, the future of marriage, that marriages introduce such profound discontinuities into the lives of women as to constitute genuine emotional health hazards.

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So there's a lot of, uh, examples of this. I probably don't need to go into them. You've heard it all before that women have the short end of the stick.

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It makes them not fulfilled. They need to go to college and get a job and it needs to be a high profile job.

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They need to take leadership positions. They need to get into the world of men in order to feel actually fulfilled.

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And of course this isn't true, not true at all. So it is no wonder that only 32 % of women believe marriage and motherhood leads to fuller, happier lives.

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And 47 % of single young women believe singleness is a more direct route to happiness for women than being wet. Now that listen, this is a real issue for the dating world, dating and marriage and courtship, whatever you want to say, get going from single to marry.

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Because if you have women out there who think that's not going to actually fulfill them in a meaningful way, as much as getting a high status job, then they're not going to put a lot of effort into it.

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And they're not going, they're going to say they're going to feel fine saying sayonara to guys that they should be saying yes to.

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And, and this of course is where, um, men can feel discouraged and it's important to not give up just because a woman has been brainwashed into this feminist kind of thinking, uh, because it is ultimately a lie.

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It's not going to fulfill them. And this is something that they need to be aware of. And help maybe make them think in these terms, make themselves ask questions that get to the root of the problem here.

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Because if there's a larger conversation going on about how women are actually pursuing these routes, not having a family, not getting married, and they're largely unsatisfied in the work world, long hours and all the rest, then it might make them think again at a younger age.

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I mean, that's the hope at least, right? So maybe you should take this, find it on the Federalist or find the study and post it on social media.

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The general social survey, the academic gold standard and social science measurements tells us that among women age, ages 18 to 55 in the

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United States, 40 % of those who are married and have children report being very happy. Wow.

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Only 25 % of married childless women report being very happy. Well, just 22 % of unmarried childless women do.

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Unmarried mothers, only 17 % report being very happy. And then during COVID, it was those married with kids who were the most likely to report being very happy during that very trying time.

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Well, of course, when the going gets tough, when there's trials, who do you cling to? I mean, the Lord, of course.

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For Christians, I mean, that would be the most happy, right? If you have the Lord. But second to that, having a family.

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And the same thing I think is true for men. If you have a wife, if you have children, if you have even parents, just having a family really helps.

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So check it out. Great study that's out there that just reinforces what the Bible has always said about the design that God has for women and men.

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Okay. Moving off. I want to talk about this a little bit. I made a post.

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I did a thing. I, for those on X, you might've seen it. If you aren't on X, you probably didn't.

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So I'll have to kind of back up and explain what happened. But I went in on Elijah Schaefer a little bit.

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Now, some of you may not know who Elijah Schaefer is, and that's okay if you don't. I did know who he was, but I wasn't intimately familiar.

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I'm still not intimately familiar. I knew he was at January 6th. I had heard of him before.

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I think I had seen some of his reporting on the Kyle Rittenhouse stuff. But Elijah Schaefer has a big show. He has like,

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I think, half a million subscribers. And his dad actually is a former

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Calvary Chapel pastor. He's a PK, or at least, I think he grew up that way. So comes from an evangelical background.

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I think that's important in knowing the rest of what I'm going to share with you.

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So there's some clips that went mini viral over the weekend from a show that Elijah Schaefer did on,

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I think it was the 25th of August, and then another one on the 27th of August, where there was sort of an attempt to clean up some of the things that were said on the 25th, both of them with Pastor Joel Webbin.

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And for the sake of time, and honestly, mostly because I don't want to share the viral things that Elijah Schaefer said, and some of which

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Joel unfortunately participated in, I'm not even going to share the clips. I will let you use your discretion.

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If you think that you should see these clips, if it's up to you, I put the links in the info section for this video.

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So you can go check that out, but I'm not going to share it on the show. I will give you enough of description to keep the show as family friendly as possible.

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And you'll know what essentially happened without having to get into the gutter to do it. So Elijah Schaefer is known basically as a shock jock, for lack of a better term, on the right more so.

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He was fired from the blaze. I don't want to get into that whole story. It's easy to find the story if you go on any search engine, but for saying things that were considered,

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I guess, sexual harassment, for lack of a better term. That's not as important to me.

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I mean, if that's true, that's obviously important, but that's not as important to me as what's obvious to anyone who ever listens to his show.

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And it's really just part of who he is. He's known for this. He is very provocative.

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He says things that are very offensive. He says things about women that are very offensive. That's just kind of who he is.

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It is intrinsic to his character. So about a week and a half ago, I think it was

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Friday before last. Yeah. Joel Webbin made an announcement.

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Now, I think I had known about this for a little while, that this was coming down the pike, but he publicly said that he is going to have a show on Elijah Schaefer's network.

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And this, of course, created a little bit of a stir. And then,

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I don't know if it was to initiate introducing him to the audience or what, but he ends up being on the show.

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And that was on the 25th. And on this particular show, I skipped around it a little bit before there were any viral clips, just because a few people actually sent it to me and said,

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John, whoa, I can't believe this. What do you think of this? And I thought it was a little odd. There were some things that were being said.

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At one time, Joel was talking about how he was making a connection between the term eugenics and Old Testament laws concerning marriage.

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And I was only getting bits and pieces, but I was going around the podcast and I was like, it just sounds odd to try to frame things,

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Christianity, the way that he was presenting it. But that was basically all I thought.

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I didn't go into detail. I didn't listen to the whole thing in depth. Well, then these clips go viral.

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And two of them were, I guess, the two biggest ones were one of them where Elijah is giving a terrible description of, and he's using personal pronouns here, and he's talking about, it sounds like from his own experience, which

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I verified, this would parallel what his actual experience sounds to be.

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But he's talking about, how do I phrase this? Finishing with a girl and then having a clarity after you're done and realizing that she only, her worth is essentially reduced down to her sexual performance.

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And that's it. And she can't even make a hot pocket. So she can't cook. So she's, it's just sexual performance and that this isn't the way that God intended for women to be, but that's how so many women are, the majority of them apparently.

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And so this was egregious. I could not see myself, if I didn't say anything, when

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I hearing in the, if I was in that same spot, right. And if I was in the room and I heard something like that, it's hard for me to conceive of not saying something unless my jaw was just on the floor so much that I wasn't prepared.

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Right. And hopefully, you know, if I wouldn't know who Elijah Schaefer is, so I would be prepared, but that's the only way

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I can see myself not saying anything, especially having a daughter. It's just, it's a little, you know, it's, he's a shock jock.

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So his description was just not worthy to repeat. And Joel sits there, you know, whatever.

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Okay. So that goes viral. People are upset that Joel's doing this, but there was another clip where he's making a joke about something very twisted homosexual.

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And it's, it's a vivid description. In fact, using personalities to fit into this imaginary twisted scenario.

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And, um, unfortunately Joel jumped in with it and decided that he would laugh with it, uh, add to the joke.

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And to me, that was more egregious. Um, I was disappointed to see it.

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And so this, this went out there as well. And it, it created a big battle even with my own audience.

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Um, it, it created, I, there was people who, uh, in the chat group for the conversations that matter, supporters and stuff, we're going back and forth discussing whether or this was appropriate or not.

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And this is the real reason I think I want to talk about this is because it, there is overlap.

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It is in our circles, uh, a, what I consider to be a wrong understanding of what course justing is the importance, uh, that the level to which we should care about it, why it matters.

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And so I want to get into some of that and use this as just the opportunity to do that. Uh, there's a reason that the

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Bible talks about this. Obviously, if there was nothing in scripture about it, then we wouldn't have to talk about it.

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But scripture says a lot about this, a lot about our tongues, a lot about the mouth and specifically sexual innuendo and those kinds of things.

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So yes, of course, there are things that are more of a big deal than that, but it is big enough of a deal that God put very stern warnings.

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In fact, it's a little surprising how stern. So we're going to look at Ephesians four and five as we go through this.

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But now if all of that had happened, I don't know if I would have talked about it, but something else happens.

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And to me, this was the worst of all of the whole scenario. This was the worst thing. And I, and I just, my heart sank on the 27th.

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There was a cleanup effort. Elijah starts off his podcast. And in the introduction right off the bat, he wants to, how do

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I say the shield justify, uh, defend what happened and acknowledge it at the same time.

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Uh, it wasn't really an apology at all. I wouldn't say it was a defense.

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It was also an attack on the people who had brought it up. And so that's what I posted about.

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Cause Elijah basically blames Protestant Christians, specifically pastors for their hypocritical focus on what he claims to be minor issues, uh, his vulgarity.

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And this is why he says people are leaving the church and they're going to the Roman Catholics are going to the

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Eastern Orthodox. And it's why there are issues, uh, why he has issues in his life with church is because of the way these

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Protestant pastors act. Now, I don't know what Protestant pastors were involved in this. The only one I knew of was Tom Buck, and maybe he was describing

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Tom Buck. I don't know. I thought Tom was being reasonable in the comments I saw, but Joel attributes

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Elijah's concerns to Protestant pastors. And they're focused on servant leadership, which

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I thought was a really odd way, like servant. I mean, I know that's not Tom Buck. I don't know who he's talking about, but I don't think servant leadership was the reason that it's certainly not the reason

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I had, uh, an opposition to this, that I, that this put a bad taste in my mouth when

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I saw it, you know, reducing women to this kind of thing, uh, descript the sexual description, joking about indecent things.

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It's not cause a servant leadership that I'm thinking those things are wrong. So I thought it was a swing and a miss.

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And so that's where I decided to post this. I said, Elijah, you downplay the sinful philosophy and lifestyle you advocated by framing it as merely crude words or jokes.

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You expend effort, vilifying the pastors who called you out, which contradicts your own claim that focusing on your words is a misprioritization.

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If you truly believe your words on women and sex were unimportant, you wouldn't address it either. You attribute these pastors supposedly pharisaical actions to a hypocritical

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Protestantism, contrasting it with Catholicism and orthodoxy. Okay. But maybe these

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Protestants have a conscience and are concerned for your soul. You persist with crude language, calling detractors, a disgusting name and this after a private correction.

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So Elijah says, look, Joel did privately correct me. But then in the very, it's like the next sentence, he uses a very vivid, immature, disgusting, sexual name to call all the people who called him out.

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It's like, well, you're just doing it again. This doubling down is worse than the initial clip. Why not just humble yourself, repent, and then enjoy the forgiveness of a

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God who won't reduce you to your sinful actions and worst moments. Christ died for the poor in spirit, those with empty pockets and nothing to offer him in exchange for salvation.

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The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus, a pardon receives every true Christian who objects to your filth only does so knowing they have been forgiven their own filth.

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And like beggars after bread, they want you to quit storing up wrath for yourself and know where to find the forgiveness they enjoy.

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None of us are holier than thou, but we know who is. And that's true. None of, I'm not saying I'm better than Elijah Schaffer as far as like,

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I would be deserving of hell, uh, just as like Elijah would, but I'm forgiven and I am repentant and I am pursuing, my direction is pursuing holiness because I love

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Christ. And I think that's the difference. And that's the thing with Elijah that he, you know, he's, he's someone that has a lot of light.

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You know, Michael Foster has been on this podcast. Uh, he's had his, I know he's had his Calvary chapel pastor dad on the podcast many times.

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I would gladly go on the podcast if I was asked to go on the pod. I'm not asking to go on the podcast, but I would go. I don't think there's anything wrong with going on a podcast now partnering.

28:13

That's a wisdom issue. I think that's, that's much different. We can talk about that. Uh, the question though, is if you go on a show like this, are you going to compromise or are you tempted?

28:24

Do you have that weakness in you would be tempted to compromise that, you know, that to sort of get down with the boys to be, would you, uh, participate in the things that they're participating in, which aren't right?

28:34

Or would you feel a pressure coming from them that you couldn't withstand? Uh, that that's really the issue.

28:39

And I think because Elijah has that background, it is different to me also a little bit than just a, just a non -Christian.

28:49

This is someone who speaks like a deconstructed Christian. Honestly. You know, this is why men don't like the church.

28:56

This is why I got problems with the church. It's because of that, those judgmental people. And they, they go after your sin and boy, they, uh, they go after my sin, but they don't see these, these other things.

29:07

They don't talk about the fact that I was broken into my car and my wallet was stolen or whatever it was.

29:12

Uh, but they, they're not concerned about that, but they're concerned about me making a joke downplaying what he actually did, which was promote a philosophy was more than a joke.

29:20

It was a, it was a philosophy that he promoted that, uh, that was evil, frankly.

29:27

So anyway, um, that was my response. And, uh, and then, you know,

29:33

I did, I'm just going to let you know this. I did mention Joel. There was a bunch of people saying, John, why don't you call Joel Webb and blah, blah, blah.

29:38

I did say this. Okay. But I know people don't always search in the comments. I said, this is the kind of thing it would be nice to have seen

29:44

Joel publicly say instead of what he did say, which merit mischaracterized guys like Tom Buck and minimize course jesting and Elijah's selfish mentality.

29:52

So I did say that now. Um, this is kind of my thing.

29:59

All right. This is one of the things that I've been thinking about the whole Christian nationalist or new

30:07

Christian, right? Whatever term you want to give it, the whole attempt at creating a positive vision with momentum that other people can rally around post 2020, a lot of it centered on banning degeneracy, getting rid of things that are evil, um, returning to wholesome standards.

30:27

All right. Things like pornography, things like blasphemy. Those are out of the gate. Two of the big things that, uh, a lot of quote unquote,

30:35

Christian nationalists were saying need to be banned. Um, women dressing in ways that are provocative.

30:41

Uh, you, you, you can't be, you can't be someone who is in the group of women shouldn't be wearing bikinis, but then participate in jokes that are vile, right?

30:53

It it's, it, you know, which one is the sexual revolution, right? They're both the sexual revolution, right?

31:00

And, and of course, context matters even in that, um, I think as, you know, women wearing bikinis at the beach in a public setting that's different than at your home alone, is it, let me, we can, we can use common sense here.

31:13

Right. Uh, but, but, but if you're going to be about against public indecency, you can't publicly, especially in a capacity as I'm here as a

31:22

Christian say things that bring up vivid images that are evil, that paint a disgusting sexual image.

31:30

You just can't do it. It's completely hypocritical. So that's one of the, the, the issues that I see that I am.

31:39

Uh, I'm just warning. If you're on that new Christian writer, that Christian nationalist side of things, try to be consistent with that.

31:48

And I, and I know there's been a lot of, uh, focus on women because it's a reaction to the years that women kind of got a pass and feminism reigns

31:59

Supreme. And now, well, let's look at what do women actually bear responsibility for the way they dress and the way they can be provocative, or is it just men and them looking and so forth?

32:12

Well, obviously it's both, but because women have been, uh, in so many settings given a pass, now there's kind of like a microscope out in some circles.

32:22

I understand that. But if we're going to have an examination of women, we have to be consistent on this stuff.

32:29

We can't, we can't be doing, uh, the whole let's ban it over here, but not over here, right?

32:35

We have to eliminate these things from our mouth as the Bible says, which we'll talk about in just a moment. Now I noticed some tried to, uh, reframe this by comparing the whole situation to this.

32:47

This is, well, you know, you know, you have a show on the network. You kind of have to do what your employer says.

32:54

You have to be there. Uh, you're a pastor. Joel's a pastor. He's in this hierarchy now with Elijah.

33:00

Uh, look at other people that work for organizations. And I understand that probably most of this audience

33:05

I would think probably isn't self -employed. You're working for the man. And most of the time it's a secular company. They probably caved in 2020.

33:12

The question though, to me is, did you cave though? It's irrelevant to me whether you're working for them.

33:21

What's what's what is relevant is in your work for them. Are you required to, or are you just voluntarily compromising in any way?

33:29

Cause if you're not compromising, you can be Daniel. You could be in Babylon and it's totally fine. You could have compromise all around you, but you don't compromise.

33:40

And that makes you an example that makes you a stalwart beacon of virtue.

33:46

And that's what people need to see. That's the light that I think God wants us to shine before men. As they see our good work, they glorify our father who is in heaven because there's a contrast.

33:55

It's not in relating to worldly ambitions that we are going to gain a hearing.

34:03

If we do gain a hearing, then it's not the kind of hearing we want. It's in contrasting ourselves with worldly ambitions that we gain a positive hearing.

34:11

That's the testimony of scripture. The apostles, how did they get before Kings?

34:18

How did they get a platform? It was not because they soft -pedaled anything. It's not because they tried to acquiesce.

34:27

They contrasted themselves with the philosophies and sins of the people they were trying to reach.

34:34

They didn't mince words about that kind of thing. So I don't buy that as a good reframing of this issue.

34:43

I think, like I said, if you can be a Christian and go into these places, I don't think that's the issue.

34:50

It's what do you do when you go into these places? That's the real question. And also, when you're going in, are you thinking in your mind, does the message of Christianity need a rebrand?

35:02

Does it need a new emphasis? Does it need new tailoring or talking points? Do certain sins need to be softened, right?

35:08

Because if any of that is going through your head, it's probably best to just stay out of it until you're strong enough to go into an environment like that.

35:16

And I think that's a good lesson for all of us, myself included, by the way. So I don't think it's about dirty words.

35:24

I don't think this is even about like, oh, he said a mean word. Let's get all the homeschool, family integrated, shielded from the world bunker mentality people out here to condemn this.

35:35

That has nothing to do with it. It's your words oftentimes when they're descriptive and they're talking about sexually twisted things, when they're pornographic, they reveal underlying philosophies.

35:47

It's what's behind the words. It's the motives. That's the issue to me. It's not about words.

35:53

And words reveal, you know, it's out of the heart. The mouth speaks, Jesus said, it's not what comes into a man.

36:00

It's what comes outside of a man that defiles him. And the West got into the predicament it's in because of words.

36:08

Initially, it's because of arguments before the court. It's because of shows like three is company and will and grace that people start laughing at sexual perversion.

36:20

And what do you know? It gets normalized in the process. It's because of words that all these things happen. So you can't tell me words don't matter, but the way they matter is because of what's behind the words, what's underneath the words, what they reveal about the heart.

36:34

That's the biblical teaching. Don't hyper -focus on the words on the surface level, go deeper.

36:39

That's the issue here, in my opinion, and I think in the Bibles. So here's some wisdom that I wrote.

36:48

I put this in my patron as people were discussing this whole issue. I just wrote this. I said, look, here's my practical tips that I have questions that I ask myself automatically.

36:58

Will the association help you with your mission? Right? So if you got to know your mission, will an association with a non -Christian or someone with a reputation like Elijah Schaffer's, will it help you with the mission you have?

37:11

Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Are you able to handle the pressure the association brings without compromise? What are your goals and do they line up with the goal of the organization you're working for?

37:21

Can you at least pursue your goals within the general mission of the organization? Is the reputation of the organization going to give you baggage?

37:30

And if so, will it limit your ability to pursue your goals? Or notice the theme through all this is the goals that God has for you is predestined you for good works.

37:38

You should know kind of what those good works are, what the mission is, will this inhibit it or will it expand it?

37:45

Is the organization pushing the needle in a bad direction? My normalizing bad behavior, or are the negative things about it already normalized and it's pushing the needle in a good direction?

37:57

This is actually a really good question that I don't think a lot of people think through. You could have, okay, the

38:03

Donald Trump presidency, you could be associated with the Donald Trump presidency. A lot of the things about Donald Trump, it's normalized already.

38:10

I'm sorry, in 2016, when I did not vote for Trump, I was a Cruz guy at that time. Seeing where things have gone,

38:17

Cruz has been a little bit of a disappointment to me, but at the time, and I still see it this way,

38:23

I did not want the Republican party to be corrupted by some of the obvious things associated with Donald Trump.

38:31

Guess what? We're past that point. There are some positive things about Trump, but there's some negative things. Those negative things have been normalized in society at large.

38:38

And one of those things is there's a coarseness, not just on the left. The left used to be known for having a coarseness.

38:45

Now it's on the right. Now the right has profanity, vulgarity. It's catching up to where the left is.

38:52

That's not good, guys. That is one of the things that made the left, that characterized the left and made it who they are.

39:00

We need to have noble standards. We need to have honor. I started rereading a biography, or it's more of a focused book on leadership.

39:08

I don't know if you'd call it a biography, but it's a book about Robert E. Lee, Robert E. Lee on leadership by Crocker. And it's actually my favorite book on Lee.

39:14

And I've read like, I don't know, six or seven biographies of Lee probably. But this particular one, it's short and it just kind of distills the lessons from Robert E.

39:25

Lee's life. And talk about a man with impeccable speech, puts me to shame.

39:31

I'm just amazed at his self -control. But he was a man who knew a timely word.

39:38

He knew about edification. He knew what to say and what would fit the need of the moment, what was fitting, right? And we need more men like Robert E.

39:45

Lee. When you read about him, I mean, he's, you wonder, did this man actually exist? Of course he did.

39:51

Many men like him have existed. There's men out there who exist like him right now, probably not in very influential positions, but we need them there.

39:57

That's where we need those kinds of men. We need to uphold standards in our own lives.

40:04

And as Robert E. Lee said, if I can't trust a man to govern himself, I cannot trust him to govern others. Starts with us.

40:11

If we can be managers at home, faithful in the little, then God will make us faithful in the much.

40:17

I don't want to gain the approval of the world. I don't want to gain popularity. I don't want,

40:22

I don't want any of those things. I want the limelight or the stage. If what ends up happening is I have to compromise in the process or I have to, you know, just cut a little bit around the edges of my message or soft pedal this just because what ends up happening, especially if you're a minister of the gospel, you, one compromise can lead to another, can lead to another, can lead to another.

40:43

It's awfully tempting. So that would be my warning, uh, out there. And this, I mean, this is nothing.

40:49

This is none of what I said is news to Joel. I've had those very frank conversations with him in the past.

40:56

Um, uh, him and I are in very different places and going very different directions at this point,

41:01

I would say. And I think we're very clear on that with each other, but, uh, this would be my warning to all of you out there who are watching this kind of thing play out.

41:12

I think we have to be extremely careful. We have to be a good witness. I admire that so much. Go to these places if you can, but make sure when you go there, you're not going to, uh, you're not going to falter under the weight.

41:25

You're going to be able to handle it because it is hard when you get into those settings and it does take discernment on some level, right?

41:31

There are some things you, I mean, look, I I've had shop talk for about 10 years of my life. No more than that.

41:37

Probably 15 years of my life. Uh, I was in shop talk, right? Furniture repairman, painter, all kinds of blue collar type jobs

41:45

I had. I mean, I had to listen to all man, but it was very different. This isn't public, right?

41:51

It's, uh, sometimes I am working for the man and I'm not compromising, but they're compromising.

41:57

Um, no, it's not endangering others that are around me. I'm and I, there were times

42:03

I did say something actually, I did say, please don't say that. Please don't take the Lord's name in vain. That offends me.

42:09

I actually think you should say those kinds of things, but you do have to use discretion and discernment. You have to choose, uh, you know, when it makes sense.

42:16

And so we're, so I mean, I've heard all these things, obviously it's not, I think that you can work in environments with people like that and still maintain your dignity and virtue.

42:26

Uh, I remember I, I worked at a, a furniture repair while I was a furniture company. I was a repairman.

42:33

And just because I didn't use foul language, I gained a reputation for don't curse around John.

42:39

Right. I didn't even have to say anything. Right. Uh, I remember my employer once this, this was actually kind of funny.

42:46

I was in a board meeting and I might've shared this before, but she goes, um, she, she looks at everyone, all the furniture techs.

42:51

She goes, now, look, we're all here to make money. Right. She goes, except for you, John, I know you're here to help people. Now I was like,

42:57

Hey, wait, wait a minute. I want to make money like I'm, I'm here to also make money. But I was, it was a great honor when

43:04

I heard that. Cause I was like, wow, that's, I mean, that's high praise. Um, I wasn't expecting.

43:09

And you know, I mean, you gotta be suspicious of people, I guess, who use themselves as positive examples.

43:14

So I didn't, I don't, I don't mean to use myself as a positive example in every sentence because I've failed at times too.

43:20

But, but I think what I'm trying to communicate is you can be in environments where you hear very bad things and still maintain your virtue.

43:29

I know because I've done it and it does take self -control. It does mean sometimes being above the fray.

43:36

There's this scene in, um, Steven Spielberg's mini series on the

43:42

American West. Trying to remember the name of it. It's really good, but you can only get it on, I think YouTube now.

43:49

Uh, I don't know if it's called way out West, but anyway, it was on AMC years ago, but Jedediah Smith is one of the characters and he portrays

43:56

Jedediah Smith as this guy. Who's kind of like, has this reputation beyond the people he's leading.

44:01

And when they're all going to the whore houses and, and fraternizing and drinking, he is reading his

44:07

Bible on the side of a mountain. And the main character walks up to him and is asking him about it.

44:13

And like, what he's like, I, he's like, pardon me. There's inside of me as a battle.

44:18

He goes, I want to be down there with them. They're having fun. They're laughing. And I just want to be with them.

44:25

But at the same time, I want to be up here with you. And, and, and I don't,

44:32

I don't know what to do with myself. He's like, I know what you're, you're in a better spot. I respect you. I admire you somehow explain this to me.

44:40

And I don't remember what Jedediah Smith said. Unfortunately, it was something profound, but um, that's what you have to be.

44:45

You have to kind of be above the fray, especially when you are a pastor, pastor's reputation, and you're going in there with the word of God.

44:52

So it just means a discernment, caution care. And if you mess up, you apologize publicly as, as publicly as you did it.

44:58

So that's kind of, that's my opinion on that whole situation. I want to get into, this is the real reason

45:05

I wanted to bring it up, which is, uh, talking, fleshing out what course jesting is, uh, for those who are downplaying it right now.

45:13

So I'm going to start reading, and this is an Ephesians chapter four, and I'm going to start in verse 17.

45:18

So this, I say, and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, uh, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their hearts.

45:31

They had become callous, having given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness, but you did not learn

45:38

Christ in this way. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, then in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the loss of the seat.

45:49

So this explains this actually, as I'm thinking about this, this would describe Elijah Schaeffer, to be quite honest, that this is who he is.

45:57

He's in darkness. He's in futility. He's walking in this, also claiming to be a

46:02

Christian on some level, which is more scary. Uh, and that you'd be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which is the likeness of God that has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

46:12

Therefore lay aside falsehood, speaking truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another be angry and do not sin.

46:19

Do not let the sun go down on your anger and you're not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor performing with his own hands, what is good so that he will give something to share with one who has need.

46:31

Now, listen to this. This is verse 29. This is a positive or, um, standard.

46:38

So we have a positive standard about speech, and we also have a negative standard. This is the positive standard, meaning what you are to try to attain a goal you have, you should have in your speech.

46:48

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment so that it will give grace to those who hear.

47:00

This is the positive standard. You shouldn't let any unwholesome word proceed for your mouth. What's an unwholesome word.

47:05

It means a rotten or a worthless or a bad word. It's the same word used in Matthew 12, 33.

47:11

When Jesus talks about a bad tree bearing bad fruit, it's rotten. There's no practical use.

47:17

You can't eat it. It doesn't give you any nutrition. It just makes you sick. So don't say things that do that.

47:25

That's the word picture. Do not grieve the Holy spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

47:31

So that's kind of scary, man. If you look at how these things are linked, I mean, it's only speech, right?

47:36

You say unwholesome things. What does that lead to grieving the spirit of God? Well, now we're in serious land.

47:44

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you.

47:53

Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love. Just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us and offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma, but immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper for saints.

48:09

And I'm almost done. This is a main verse here. Verse four of chapter five of Ephesians. There must be no filthiness and silly talk or course jesting, which are not fitting, but rather the giving of thanks for this.

48:23

You know, with certainty that no immoral or an impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

48:32

Now I'm going to stop right there. That's crazy because he in two verses, he goes from speech to action.

48:40

If this is your speech, this is what characterizes who you are. And that's not the kind of person who actually is a

48:46

Christian. It's that serious. Now to get into a little more depth on this, uh, to give you a full picture of what these terms actually mean.

48:56

Filthiness means ugliness or deformity. Silly talk means it's actually a compound word, uh, moral

49:04

Lagia, which is moron talk. Literally don't talk like a moron. And then for our purposes, the most important one course jesting, which is, uh, you, if I can pronounce this, it's been a while since Greek, uh, utah, rah,

49:21

Polly, uh, utah, Polly, uh, this noun was used literally and positively in the sense of cleverness and humor, but in early

49:28

Christian literature, it is always negative. So this could be used in a positive way.

49:34

Now, this is one of the things I've noticed with myself. I'm going to be honest, those reels on Facebook, sometimes comedians are really funny, but if you watch a lot of comedy, you'll notice a lot of comedians are really coarse and, but they can be clever in their coarseness.

49:47

That's what this is talking about. It's a cleverness. It's impressive. Sometimes double entendres can be impressive, but there's a price when you laugh at those things, you can corrupt yourself in the process.

49:59

You can make light of things that are actually very sinful. So, um, so that's what you're, those are the prohibitions.

50:07

That's the negative standard, if you will. Now in the next verse, it talks about immorality and impurity, right?

50:14

These actions, the word for immorality is pornos, pornographic, sexually immoral for impurity, uh, cathartas, which means unclean.

50:26

So he, he's giving you enough words, I think, to give a very firm and clear description of the kinds of things that are prohibited for a

50:35

Christian. And he also gives you enough to know how important this is. Now, someone brought up to me, I can't think of good examples of this in scripture where you see, uh, these vivid descriptions.

50:46

Now there are circumstances where you do see descriptions of sexual things, whether it's for the legal code in the old

50:53

Testament, because you got to know what kind of things you're going to punish, but it's very clinical. Okay. It's like, um, it's, it certainly doesn't fall into the category of course, jesting.

51:03

It's not a witticism. It's not for humor. His purpose is it is specifically to tell you who you're going to punish and how you're going to punish them.

51:12

You also have descriptions of wickedness, sometimes poetic descriptions in the prophets.

51:19

And, um, you know, Ezekiel is one of the big ones that's brought up, Israel's compared to a prostitute.

51:27

And there is some description of what that would look like. Well, again, this isn't a context where you're laughing, making light of you're, you're not even really giving the vividness is a, it's not, you're not even getting into a twistedness of, um, you know, like a

51:45

Romans one type of levels of degradation type description. And you're, it's more of a, on the surface, um, painting a picture of what heterosexual

51:56

Acton's look like in an unfaithful manner. And this is what Israel is doing by their idolatry to the

52:03

Lord. Jeremiah does something similar. And so it's a very different context. So my, my response to that is my, is the thought

52:10

I had initially immediately was the reason that scripture doesn't include a lot of examples.

52:17

I can't think of any that are specifically course jesting is because it would be like having a gluten -free cookbook and then saying, well, there's no gluten recipes in it, right?

52:28

Because it's the gluten -free cookbook, right? Course, course jesting itself is forbidden. So why would you expect it to be included in scripture?

52:36

If there's going to be any inclusion, it'll be a description of what it is, which is what you have in Ephesians. And we obviously don't see positive examples in scripture of the, of that being used anywhere.

52:46

So that's kind of my two cents. The one last thing I would read is to you is this is from Lenski's interpretation of Ephesians.

52:55

And, um, he has this to say about it. Let's see.

53:03

It says instead of using a simple prohibition, Paul has a stronger form. Let it not even be named among you as the fit

53:09

Saints. A thought is of course, not that these vices are not even to be mentioned among Christians for Paul himself does that right here.

53:15

And we must warn that against them as he does the view that Christians are not even to discuss them with pleasure and avidity in conversation does not lie in the text.

53:25

Paul means that such vices are to be so far removed from us that even an intimation or a suspicion of their presence among us should not occur as the fit

53:34

Saints. So the whole point that Paul's making is don't even let your reputation be associated with this.

53:42

Don't let it be named among you. Stay as far away from it as possible. I think we're so used to it.

53:47

I think it's so normalized that it's very hard for us. And I don't know. I'm not trying to strain.

53:53

I'm not trying to clutch pearls or strain it. And that's, I'm just trying to interpret and apply what the Bible says. And if the apostle

54:00

Paul is going to get in trouble for this kind of thing, right? If he's guilty of it, then chances are that, uh, some of the defenses of this are not actually correct.

54:11

There is no defense, right? Cause Paul would be, you know, is he a goody two shoes here? Who's majoring on minors in the same section?

54:19

He's talking about your speech in this regard. He's also talking about the actions that they described.

54:24

So, um, I think it is important. I think that's how we got here as a society. I think normalizing the kind of behavior that we want to ban making light of things that God considers wicked and evil is something we got to try to stay away from.

54:38

And no, I'm not a legalist about it. Uh, but this is, if we're going to want, if we're going to push for social morality, if we're going to push for legal morality, if we want to return to some of the laws that were on the books, let's say 150, 200 years ago, we also have to have those kinds of safeguards in our own lives.

54:58

So I've wanted to say this for a little while. And I know I, in some circles have a reputation for being against profanity, which, um,

55:05

I don't know. I, I, I I'm not perfect in this regard in every element of my life, but this is something

55:14

I want to lean into more because someone's got to be right. Someone's got to be saying that this, these standards need to be upheld and no, not getting bent out of shape.

55:23

When someone says a dirty word, uh, necessarily, I mean, there's, there's a broader discussion we can have about what words are socially and traditionally viewed as, uh, obscene and what words can't, can't be used in mixed company versus, uh, with men or, you know, with women or what words can be used in this context.

55:43

And really my whole thing, just in this is more about what's underlying the course jesting when it's obvious, it's course jesting, which

55:52

Elijah Schaefer stuff is so obvious. It reveals a philosophy. It reveals a degradation. It reveals bringing everyone's mind down into the gutter.

56:00

That's not what we want as believers. Okay. Um, so I have no illusions,

56:06

Elijah Schaefer would ever watch this, but if he ever did, I would just say, Elijah, I reiterate what I said in the post and I call you to repentance.

56:13

I mean, you have a Christian background. All you need to do is repent and come to Christ and he will forgive you of those things.

56:19

And he'll give you a new heart and a direction that doesn't even want to do those. Your mouth will feel dirty when you say things like that.

56:27

All right. Enough about that. I'll take questions on it. If people are curious about it,

56:32

I want to switch gears though and get through the podcast since we're almost an hour in already. And we're going to talk about just a few things.

56:40

I noticed this. All right. I'm going to say this in passing because it's not recent, but I just, I didn't,

56:45

I was startled when I saw it. So here's a story that I think is worth at least letting you know about.

56:51

Immigrants and children of immigrants make up at least 15 % of the 119th Congress. I was a little shocked when

56:57

I heard that. Really? 15 %? That seems kind of steep. This is from Pew Research Center.

57:03

Now people are online debating this. Why is this? Is it because God judges a country and this is part of God's judgment?

57:11

Is foreigners will rule over you? I think that probably is part of it. I also think though immigrant groups generally have an incentive to defend themselves.

57:19

When you're in the minority, you're aware of it more so. And so you want political representation. You also have a liberal system that seeks diversity and equality.

57:28

And so it's going to reward people who are different. And you also have,

57:35

I think the fact that the people coming here on H -1Bs and so forth, if you're willing to make the trek to America, you are more ambitious naturally.

57:43

So you're going to seek high office. So I think those things also factor into this. This is more of an incentive for Americans though to get on the move guys.

57:52

I mean, really, if you don't want to be governed by foreigners, then you better start pursuing the things that make for influence or else we're already there.

58:05

Now, is this going to happen with Gen Z? Here's the question. Here's a headline from the

58:12

Daily Signal. Fewer teens are working earning money and job skills. Well, great. Great. That's just what we need.

58:19

One of the rites of passage was getting a job as a teenager. That's in danger. Just 35 % of 16 to 19 year olds worked last summer down from 54 % in 2000.

58:28

Well, that's crazy. And that's not good. That means that we have teenagers who are not learning responsibility.

58:34

They're going to be stunted in their growth. That's going to inhibit them in finding spouses and starting families.

58:40

That's going to inhibit church leaders from forming and all the leaders in society from forming. We absolutely need the younger generation to take responsibility.

58:49

If you are an employer, please consider making this part of your mission to save your country.

58:56

Make it your ministry mission. If it's teens in your church to disciple and help them grow, give them a job.

59:02

Maybe they're not as efficient as the person that you could hire from the Home Depot, but boy, do we need

59:10

Americans to start taking responsibility. It'll mean more than you realize. I know this was formative for me.

59:15

I started my first job when I was 15 years old. As soon as I was able to work, before that I had several businesses that I worked on my own because I couldn't get working papers.

59:25

As soon as I could at 15, I got working papers. Before I could drive, I got a job down the street at a farm.

59:31

I was just picking produce, but I already picked it because my dad made me pick it in the big garden we had. I raised chickens.

59:37

I sold the eggs. I had a bread making business for a while. I think my mom just helped me with that. I wanted to make money, but it was enough for me to save up for that fly fishing rod

59:48

I never used. It was so formative in my life.

59:53

I had I don't know how many jobs before I went to college. I worked my way through college.

59:59

I got to experiment and figure out what I wanted to do. So many people don't know what they want to do because they haven't gotten out in there and they haven't worked.

01:00:06

How are you going to know what you want to do if you're not working? This is disastrous, guys. I can't tell you how bad this is. You can't just be sitting there on your phone.

01:00:15

Few people are going to be the online influencers that actually make money. It's not even a healthy way for that to be your first gig, to be honest with you.

01:00:24

There's so many temptations with it. It is better to be working for someone, to be able to take orders, to be able to exist in a hierarchy, to be able to know what it looks like to submit and to be humble, to learn a skill.

01:00:37

It all needs to happen. It's not happening. So get out there, guys. If you're an employer, make it happen.

01:00:43

If you need work done on your house, grab the team at your church. I'm speaking to myself here. I need to do that. I got a hundred bucks.

01:00:50

Okay, I'm going to find someone to help me out. Actually, we have this guy. We have the guy at our church.

01:00:55

He's kind of like a gopher. I said this yesterday at church. I was like, I won't say his name, but there's a guy at our church.

01:01:04

When everyone needs something done, they call him. He's like 15. No, he's younger than that, actually. He was like 14. Anyway, that's a good thing.

01:01:11

Be that kind of a teenager if you're listening. Now, there's a documentary coming out about Gen Z that says that they're open to a revival.

01:01:20

It gets the red carpet premiere at Kennedy Center. It's called They Want Hope. Now, the only thing I was going to say about this is

01:01:25

I've been hearing this my entire life. I was hearing that millennials were this. I have a natural skepticism.

01:01:31

I want it to be true, though. We obviously have to focus on the younger generations.

01:01:36

We have to give them the gospel. They need a positive example. They shouldn't see dysfunction. We shouldn't be doing what, unfortunately, the boomers did to my generation, the millennials, where they just wanted to be the cool mom and be the best friend and the cool dad.

01:01:50

We don't need more cool dads and cool moms who say edgy things that the teens like, that just get in there with what the young men want to hear and what they're looking at online.

01:02:01

We need people who are different, who actually can not just get popularity with young people but gain their respect because our lives reflect virtue.

01:02:11

That's the real thing that we need. Another encouragement, if that's true, and I hope it is, more than ever, we need it.

01:02:19

I see this in my own church. I see young men just show up sometimes. I haven't seen them. Sometimes, they don't stay for long, but they're looking.

01:02:29

I don't know if this is different than the millennials yet. I think time will tell. We need to be vigilant, absolutely, 100 % vigilant.

01:02:38

Okay, so what doesn't help? What doesn't help in this vigilance,

01:02:44

John? What doesn't help is Dwight McKissick. What doesn't help is Southern Baptist pastors who have somewhat of a platform saying things like this.

01:02:52

Here's a picture of myself, William Wolfe, a number of the other speakers on this panel from the conference last week, and Dwight McKissick saying, notice who's missing from the group that's pictured as those who are going to make

01:03:05

Baptist great again. Only one ethnic group is represented. Reminds me of the group that made Baptist slave -owning missionaries.

01:03:12

You can't be missionaries and masters simultaneously. Segregationist and anti -suffrage doesn't sound like greatness to me.

01:03:18

Sounds racist and sexist, right? So that's what we were doing, I guess, at the conference last week.

01:03:25

The woke stuff hasn't gone away, guys. It's still there. There's still a large group of people that, I'm telling you, there's a shift and once an election gets lost and we're back to a

01:03:39

Biden -like presidency. The Groypers right now are running around, the

01:03:44

Nick Fuentes fans are running around trying to support Gavin Newsom. My goodness. Gavin Newsom is a train wreck.

01:03:50

If Gavin Newsom becomes the next president of the United States, it's going to be a flip and it's going to be a hard flip, guys.

01:03:58

The woke stuff is maybe in hibernation, but it's still there and it can come back with vengeance very easily.

01:04:05

And there's plenty of Gen Zers, especially Gen Z women who are getting at a higher rate.

01:04:10

They're getting graduate and college degrees. They are getting higher profile jobs. They are getting power.

01:04:17

And I'm not saying, I mean, I want Bantz to be the next president of the options

01:04:23

I've heard, but we'll have to see. And I'm just pointing out, even in these denominations, now is not a time if you're fighting in the

01:04:31

SBC to take yourself off the gas pedal. You have Willie Rice out there who is saying great things and he's got all the connections.

01:04:40

He came from the establishment class of the SBC and he is saying things that I'm You got the fact that the

01:04:49

ERLC is kind of up in the air. They don't have a president, they're looking. I mean, what if that post gets filled by a conservative guy?

01:04:55

Now is not the time to put the swords down. Now's the time to push harder. And guys like Dwight McKissick need to feel it, that the future is not with them because enough people are pushing.

01:05:05

And I'm just saying that if you, if that's a big F, if you are in the SBC and you're fighting this, you got to support need to support center for Baptist leadership.

01:05:13

Uh, get out there. If you put your money where your mouth is, all of that. All right.

01:05:19

SBC related. Um, I want to share something with you that is you, this is particular to this audience to some extent, cause we've been covering it.

01:05:27

But those who've been following my podcast for a while are going to know something about this Stonegate church in Odessa, Texas, Stonegate church in Odessa, Texas is getting apparently a new pastor.

01:05:38

Now he's not on the list yet here. Uh, but I, I assume he will be pretty soon. And that particular pastor,

01:05:45

I just wrote about in an article at the center for Baptist leadership called silent takeover, how local churches are being hijacked by the big

01:05:53

Eva blob. And it's in the section on first Baptist Naples. Now you might know about this. We filmed this,

01:05:58

I think in late 2019, this documentary, and we talk about a guy in there named

01:06:03

John David Eddie, John David, Eddie, John David, Eddie, uh, was the pastor, one of the pastors at first Baptist, the executive pastor to be, uh, put a fine point on it, who had been at FBC for three years in, um, uh, in 2016.

01:06:22

So I'm doing the math here. So by the time we get there, he's still there. Right. So, uh, that means that he had been there six years.

01:06:30

And so he was there, what a total of seven years or so in Florida. This is important for what I'm going to show you next.

01:06:36

Just think about this. He's been in Florida for at least seven years and John David, Eddie, an executive pastor in the

01:06:43

Southern Baptist church, uh, wrote and within his father has strong ties to the international mission board of the

01:06:49

SBC. He wrote a letter to the denomination claiming that they had a bunch of racists in their church and that these racists decided to prevent

01:06:59

Marcus Hayes, a black man from becoming the pastor because they were motivated by racism. This went out there,

01:07:05

JD Greer and others decided to platform this, uh, to signal boost it. And they just talked about how horrible this was.

01:07:13

And this became a, uh, across the board, a thing people just accepted in the

01:07:18

SBC. We got a racist problem. It turns out we didn't. And I did the help do this documentary on FBC, Naples interviewed the people that were called racist.

01:07:28

They were slandered. That's what happened. And John David, Eddie, more than anyone else is responsible for that slandering.

01:07:36

Well, John David has, uh, it's been a few years and he is now about to, if he has not already, he's maybe starting a position at this church

01:07:47

Stonegate church in Odessa, Texas. I know about it because, um, one of the people from Naples reached out to me and told me actually funny enough, it was very providential.

01:07:59

I reached out to this person. So I was just saying basically, Hey, center for, what was I saying to them? Oh, I was,

01:08:04

I was sharing them. I would say, Hey, did you, I don't, did you see that this article I mentioned first Baptist Naples and they're like,

01:08:10

Hey, speak of the double, look, what's happening. Well, John David, Eddie, uh, made a, let's just say, uh, he introduced himself to this new church and here is what he had to say to this new church that he is going to be ministering.

01:08:28

Things that we've been looking for is an executive minister, an executive minister to come in and, and help lead our staff and, and, uh, help our ministries grow and impact the kingdom and things of that nature.

01:08:41

And so, uh, so we were able to, uh, get an external search team, uh, together and, and, uh, get them hired.

01:08:50

And they were able to search and bring in some candidates to an internal search team that we had made up of a couple of elders and, uh, servant leaders, couple of staff members.

01:08:59

And so I'm really honored and it's really my privilege to build, to introduce him and his amazing wife here today, that they are following the call, uh, of coming to Odessa, Texas.

01:09:16

We get an incredible couple that, you know, has an amazing family and, uh, they're, they're coming from Missouri and they're moving to Odessa, Texas, and they're just OB being obedient to the

01:09:28

Lord. JD has over 30 years ministry experience, and I know is going to be a great impact and a help to our church.

01:09:36

And so would you please give a warm, and as I've always known for the last 11 years,

01:09:43

SGO, welcome to JD and Rhonda. As I think it would be proper for me to say

01:09:59

JD, um, we're really excited about Rhonda and we get to have you too, right?

01:10:05

Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. So we just want to thank you guys for being obedient and just following God's call and his lead.

01:10:13

And, uh, we just thank you so much and excited to see you guys come in and be a part of our family here.

01:10:21

And so JD, would you say a few words to your new church family? Well, yeah, again,

01:10:27

I'm JD and this is my amazing wife, Rhonda. And you may not have heard me, but I said, yeah, you want her not necessarily me.

01:10:33

Uh, but we are very, very excited, uh, to come here. Uh, I went to school at Texas tech in Lubbock for a few years.

01:10:41

And so West Texas is not unknown to me. I love West Texas, but we've been in Missouri for 35 or so years.

01:10:49

And, uh, if you've not been to Southwest Missouri, the Ozarks, uh, they have these things called trees there.

01:10:56

And, uh, it's pretty green. Uh, it really is a pretty part of the world.

01:11:01

And, uh, so when, when we visited a few weeks ago, and then even this trip, people would say, well, where are you coming from?

01:11:09

And we'd say Missouri. And this was our response and you're coming to Odessa.

01:11:15

And we would say, yes, we're, we think so. And, uh, but, but one of the things that we've got from everybody is, you know, maybe

01:11:24

Odessa is not the most picturesque place in the world, but the people here are great.

01:11:32

We've heard that everywhere from everybody here in the church and even outside the church as we've conversed with people.

01:11:38

And you know what, that is so true. And we have already found that we felt the love, the acceptance from the staff, from church members, from the elders, from the leadership.

01:11:47

And even when we go around town, we can see that. So we are very, very excited to get on the ground here and to begin working and to be a part of the

01:11:57

SEO family. Well, we're excited to have you guys. And so here's the deal.

01:12:02

We're going to pray over these two because, um, you know how, if you've moved any, it's like, let's stop there.

01:12:13

So, uh, what you just heard is we've been in Missouri. Uh, what about that?

01:12:19

Those years that you were down in Florida? What about that? Eddie has not publicly repented of slandering members of this previous church that he was executive pastor at.

01:12:31

And you need to do it as publicly as this is such a frustration for me. Sometimes people think they can just repent in private of a public sin that caused unimaginable harm.

01:12:45

I don't know if Eddie has repented in private, but if he has, he needs to do it publicly, obviously.

01:12:52

And it, another thing that makes me think he hasn't really repented is he just doesn't even mention that that whole time he was in Florida.

01:12:59

It's like it never happened. He's just telling him he's from Missouri. He's been in Missouri for about 20 years. And really, really is that that sounds like a lie to me.

01:13:06

Sounds like a lie to me. So, uh, if you are connected to anyone at this church, danger, Will Robertson, you're taking in a man that does not have virtue.

01:13:14

That's not the kind of man that needs to be there. And this is part of what I've been talking about for a while now.

01:13:21

Um, the guy guys want a rehabilitation guys who went hard woke in 2020 want a rehabilitation.

01:13:27

They want to, they know things have shifted a little bit and they can't be as, as hard as they were at that point, whether they believe it or not, they want to portray themselves as something that's going to be more successful.

01:13:41

And it's going to be up to congregations as to whether they allow that. If you, if you allow it to happen, you deserve what you get though, unfortunately.

01:13:49

So it's, it's up to you guys. I can't do it for you, right? I get a lot of messages from people that are saying, John, it's happening here.

01:13:55

You've done these documentaries, it's happening here. And I'll always ask, is there a core group of people who are going to fight it? Most of the time?

01:14:01

There's not. And I said, there's not much I can do. Uh, you need a core group of people. You need, if you're not going to fight for the church, what, what am

01:14:08

I going to do for you? So fight, fight for your churches. Uh, maybe just do a little background.

01:14:15

I mean, if I look, if you, if you just even Google his name, my article is one of the first things that comes up.

01:14:20

It's not hard to find out. And again, I don't want to like punish this guy forever. What he did was very bad.

01:14:26

Like it's to the point, like, I mean, if he's ever going to be back in ministry, it's like years that it would take to ever trust this guy again.

01:14:33

I mean, he just made it worse with this, what I believe to be a lie about his living situation, but you got to start somewhere, you have to start with owning it.

01:14:43

If you don't own it, then that makes the trust even less. So let's get to some comments.

01:14:50

Oh, we got a little bit more. I want to, I want to end on a high note. Can I end on a high note? And then we'll get to comments.

01:14:55

Is that okay? Um, let's get rid of this and talk about this. Let's talk about how, let's see here.

01:15:04

There you go. Robert E. Lee, his portrait is being reinstalled at West point.

01:15:10

This is from civil war memory. And, uh, I wanted to read it from here, show you this one.

01:15:15

Cause I don't like any of the mainstream news, uh, reporting on this cause they're just terrible. I've, this is important to me because I've actually seen this painting on numerous occasions.

01:15:26

I live not far from West point and I know exactly where it was. And I just, uh,

01:15:31

I thought it was amazing. I was actually with some cadets not long ago. And I asked him, any of you have demerits?

01:15:37

And of course everyone had demerits said any, you know, anyone who didn't and people couldn't, no one could bring up a positive example of someone without demerits.

01:15:46

Robert E. Lee, to my knowledge is still, I think one of the only, if not the only person that has attended West point without a demerit.

01:15:53

And maybe there's been a few since then. I don't know, but he's very commendable. He's got very high virtue, very high virtue in his speech and his action.

01:16:02

And he is the kind of soldier you want to be. He was very clear that we don't do the kinds of things that some of the

01:16:10

Northern in the Northern army was done. I know people bring up, well, what about controls Raiders? What about, yeah, okay.

01:16:16

You got some, some guerrilla groups in the South that did some things, but, but you don't have official orders coming down from high command that are basically saying to burn a path through the

01:16:28

South and devastate the economy. So people starve and burn houses and churches and everything.

01:16:35

Robert E. Lee was different. We don't do that. And even if it helps our army, we, that's just not who we are.

01:16:42

And it just an incredible self -control incredible man on every level, the way he dealt with women and handled interactions was he was not weird about it.

01:16:51

He could be friends. He could even compliment women. And it was never, uh, it never crossed the line.

01:16:57

I just, it respects so many things about him. And this was the right call for Pete Hegseth too. And I hope what they do is

01:17:03

Pete Hegseth also, in addition to restoring this also renamed some of the things, cause they like changed

01:17:08

Lee street to Grant street. And they did a bunch of things they shouldn't have done at West point.

01:17:14

It's time to change it back. Take all the woke nonsense back. The reason Lee's remembered is because he was probably one of the most amazing military, uh, minds of the 19th century.

01:17:26

In fact, I think Winston Churchill, it was who said he was the greatest military mind, the

01:17:31

West, the English speaking peoples has ever produced. And he, in addition to that had such a high character as a

01:17:38

Christian, that he was the kind of man that you want your troops to be like. That's why he's there.

01:17:43

He's not there because we're just pro slavery. Um, and in fact, if you know anything about Robert E.

01:17:49

Lee, you know that he was also against slavery. So he, and he inherited some slaves from his father -in -law with a stipulation that they had to be freed in five years in the will.

01:17:58

And so they had no incentive to work and the plantation was in debt. So it was a really bad situation

01:18:04

Lee was in. Um, but you know, he, he was the kind of man that he thought through the, instead of through cannons and muskets, it would be through the, the charitable, um, force of Christianity that gradually would end, put an end to slavery.

01:18:24

So you can look that all up. It's all very easily available. I would recommend people have asked me before what's the best biography.

01:18:30

I mean, the gold standard is Douglas Southall Freemans. Uh, that's the one I would probably read.

01:18:36

I wouldn't bother with who is the one that just did the, there's a guy associated with the gospel coalition and the PCA. I'm trying to remember his name now who just wrote a

01:18:43

Lee biography that I would not recommend, but, uh, just go to Freeman's biography. That's probably the best one.

01:18:49

Uh, still there's a bridge versions. It's kind of like a, I think it's like a four volume set or something. If you can find the full probably cost you hundreds of dollars, but it's where I actually still want that.

01:18:58

If anyone who's rich wants to give me a nice gift, find me an original Douglas Southall Freeman for six volume, whatever it is of a

01:19:06

Lee. He also has one on Washington. I would love that one too, but great news coming from our administration.

01:19:13

Also, I just wanted to highlight this. This happens all the time. Archeologists unearthed massive wall at site where Jesus healed blind man in gospel of John.

01:19:21

And I just think this is so amazing that literally like in any six month period, it seems like there's always some new discovery coming up that parallels or confirms what the

01:19:31

Bible teaches. We have so much reason to have faith in scripture.

01:19:36

And one of them is the constant archeological discoveries. And it, all it would take is one to contradict the

01:19:42

Bible, but we don't have any. All right, I'm going to get to some questions and then we will go from there.

01:19:49

So cosmic trees and says the Lord did a peculiar Providence because John talked the most at the

01:19:54

Q and a panel and he didn't cough. Yeah, that's true. I've already coughed a few times on this podcast. I'm doing well right now though, to be honest.

01:20:00

Uh, but that's, that's right. And I, I, I'll be honest on that panel. I felt like I, it was kind of weird because I didn't know,

01:20:07

I don't know. I was out of it. I, I came up to the panel late and then I felt like I had to catch up and I probably talked too much.

01:20:12

I was a little self -conscious about it. And I felt like I'll, I'm going to be a hundred percent honest. This is what, how

01:20:17

I felt on that panel. I felt like I should get out of there. And I felt like Jerry door should take my place.

01:20:23

Cause some of the questions I was like, it's probably better for Jerry Doris. He was in the audience and a very politically involved pastor.

01:20:30

And those were like a lot of the questions, but I gave my opinion, I gave my two cents and I'm in a sort of a different world than a lot of the people in a

01:20:38

Bible belt area where we, we, we make efforts. We go to legislative day.

01:20:43

We try to support Christian lobbyists. We, um, some of us, uh, have, I mean, I know in the past I have not recently, but I have gone down to Planned Parenthood and done the sidewalk counseling thing.

01:20:56

Uh, you know, we, we have local elections. We have moms for Liberty folks in our church. We get out there and try to evangelize, but it's like, it's a rear guard effort.

01:21:05

Uh, we, it's just such a blue area and there's such a low population of evangelicals, let alone conservatives.

01:21:11

And the Republicans here are like pro abortion. So it's just such a hard thing in a blue area.

01:21:19

This is one of the reasons I want to keep the Bible belt from going this direction. I know what it looks like when

01:21:24

I visit you in the Bible belt. I am from the future. I am here to warn you about what will happen if you go down this road.

01:21:31

Anyway, some of the vulgarity says TH infiltrating the right can be chalked up to the Overton window shift.

01:21:38

Um, yeah, I'd say that's right. People say that's at least what they attribute it to. I wonder what

01:21:43

Overton window though. Like what? Okay. So I tried to explain this to my dad on Sunday. Cause my dad was, um, my dad is like, you know, liberals are hypocrites when it comes to, uh, their own standards for sexual speech.

01:21:59

They get down on Trump, which is true, but they all obviously tolerate filthy comedians and filthy actions and all.

01:22:06

And that's true. But here's the thing, the left liberals will say they do have this weird, like, like they have a modicum some, sometimes, sometimes, okay.

01:22:18

They have these weird vestiges of Christianity that have been twisted and they've been set upon different foundations and they'll weaponize it.

01:22:27

So for example, even this idea of tolerance and inclusion and well, being welcoming, right?

01:22:33

This is like a Christian instinct and it's weaponized against you and applied to the wrong things and applied in the wrong, you know, to the wrong extent as well.

01:22:45

That's what they do. It's a corrupted, twisted kind of version of Christianity sometimes. They do this with, uh, with, with the sexual standards as well.

01:22:55

There are some things the left actually retains that are correct. Like you, like raping is wrong, right?

01:23:02

Raping is wrong. Who would have thought there are some leftist feminist groups are against pornography, but it's for some of the wrong.

01:23:10

Some of the reasons they use are just wrong, right? Cause it's like, well, it just, it degrades women. Well, that's true, but it's like, cause we want equal society.

01:23:17

Well, no, we want a hierarchical society because that's what God baked into nature. And that's, you can't just kick against the goads of nature without having a consequence.

01:23:26

We should, men should be the leaders and they should also have self -control. How does that sound?

01:23:32

Right? No, that's also bad. But when they criticized Donald Trump for saying, he's going to touch women in a certain area, that was a right.

01:23:42

That was a correct thing to criticize that. Christians could also criticize that for different set of reasons because it offends

01:23:48

God, because we believe women are made in God's image and it's evil. Now in walks guys like Andrew Tate, Andrew Tate, people think are, he's pushing the

01:23:57

Overton window cause he's offending all those leftists who are against misogyny. Okay. Yeah. Maybe that's what he's doing, but in the process, he's just degrading everything as well.

01:24:06

So I think if you're going to think like a Christian, if you're thinking like an actual conservative to someone who's actually trying to conserve the true, valuable, transcendental principle things that are still exist in society.

01:24:19

And you want to, you want to lean into those things. You want to drill into those things. You want to expand those things. Then you're not going to support an

01:24:24

Andrew Tate. You're going to see him as an undermining influence and someone who is also creating the world that the left wants to save you from.

01:24:35

You know, women need a protector. Who's that going to be? If the men are degraded, Oh, the government, right? No. How about we have a

01:24:42

Christian conservative vision where men aren't going to degrade themselves like this. And we'll have voluntary associations and churches that are also able to keep men accountable instead of ripping those things down, because supposedly they're the things that are corrupting men and so forth.

01:24:58

Okay. John, if you're talking about the miniseries by Spielberg, it was into the West. Thank you.

01:25:04

It was into the West. That is very true. Okay. Question. Uh, are you and Joel friendly?

01:25:09

I know Doug and James are distance over the Tobias thing, but I haven't seen comments from you or Michael Foster only know he's friendly with the

01:25:16

Ogden guys. And what way are you moving in different directions? Cause you are both vocal on heritage Americana.

01:25:22

Is it soft paddling Roman Catholics and leaning into Jewish criticism? Something else? Uh, I'm ending the podcast soon.

01:25:29

I don't have really time to give a full answer. Um, I'll say this, uh,

01:25:34

Joel and I have had discussions off and on over differences for at least since last fall.

01:25:42

And I think there's been an accumulation of things that he has said, um, in a few different areas that I think

01:25:51

I see as problematic and problematic, according to my opinion, a Christian standard.

01:25:57

So, and especially for a pastoral office, and I'm someone who wants to move in a more pastoral direction.

01:26:03

Um, I also, uh, for associational reasons, um, I have to,

01:26:10

I have to be careful of what kinds of associations I have and for what reasons

01:26:16

I have them. Okay. So I never want to give the impression that I put a stamp of approval on something that I consider to be wrong.

01:26:26

If I went on Elijah Schaefer show, for example, I don't think just being on the show signals to people that I give a stamp of approval.

01:26:34

I don't think that just because I'm at a conference, it signals to people that I necessarily give approval.

01:26:40

I do think this happens somewhat organically over time. As you're on someone's podcast more and more as a reoccurring guest, as you say, or, or they say they all actually, all that it needs is they say positive things about you.

01:26:54

Um, as you, if you have them on your podcast, if you, uh, attend conferences on a regular basis, if you in, you know, have a lot of overlap in audience and, and, um, just the kind of the topics that you talk about and the positions that you have, and eventually people draw an association and you, uh, you end up getting put in places where you're going to be with each other.

01:27:20

There are, there are things that Joel said over a period of time. And like I said, it's an accumulation that I consider to be,

01:27:31

I guess, when, when did I have, I'm trying to remember when I had the conversation where I had to basically say this to him,

01:27:36

I think it was right before the, the trash roll conference. So it was like, what was that April? So it was like early April, um, where I finally said,

01:27:45

I can't really have a positive association without it would, it would have to be us disagreeing.

01:27:51

It would have to be very clear that we're on different trajectories. Um, it is about things like what

01:27:57

I talked about in this, uh, video. It's, there's other things Joel said that I'm just, I can't defend that.

01:28:03

Um, and I don't think he sees as much of a problem with it. That's the difference, right? I do see a problem with it.

01:28:08

Uh, on, yeah, on Jewish stuff. I, I think we probably are in different places on that.

01:28:16

Um, I, I certainly don't see it as an interpretive grid.

01:28:21

I, I do think that there are elements of the online, right? And I think there's a spectrum here, but they're getting into territory where it's becoming an ideology.

01:28:30

It's becoming an explanation for everything. Uh, it's, it's, it's going into Nick Fuentes territory, frankly.

01:28:37

And I don't think that that is accurate or necessarily, I don't think that comes from deep study. I think it comes from, um, it does, there are certain true things people see.

01:28:49

I'm not going to say that Jewish people aren't high achievers, that they don't have, uh, a capacity to do evil, um, that they don't have in group preferences.

01:28:58

I do think, and this is just a historical truth. I believe the most of the problems that we talk about in our country, most of them, okay.

01:29:09

Whether it's feminism or liberalism or, um, or it's socialism, they go back to a time in our country before there were heavy levels of Jewish immigration.

01:29:25

So we're dealing with problems that have been ongoing for a long time. Now, there are, if you look at like voting patterns,

01:29:32

Jewish people tend to vote liberal more when they get into high positions of authority. Uh, they tend to lean left.

01:29:39

I mean, there's reasons for this that I don't have time to explain on this podcast. And I think I've probably briefly explained another podcast, but, um,

01:29:48

I, I see this as more of a liberal problem. And I think, uh, there are high percentages of people from a

01:29:54

Jewish background that have lent their support to the liberal project, but I don't think that it's intrinsic necessarily.

01:30:01

I don't think you could, all the Jewish people could leave our country and we would still be dealing with the same kinds of problems,

01:30:07

I believe. So that does put me in a different place than a lot of guys who, at least the direction that I see a lot of guys going, um, in, you know, the based right -wing, uh, factions and so forth.

01:30:23

Um, I accept critiques that even leave Jewish people out.

01:30:28

I also accept ones that, uh, include, uh, the, the contributions Jewish people have made.

01:30:33

So I think there's a way to do this in a fair, uh, and, um, helpful fashion.

01:30:39

And I, I don't think Joel is necessarily doing that right now. So that would be another difference,

01:30:45

I suppose. Um, I don't really have time to talk. There's other stuff too, that's coming to my mind, but I really don't want to get in a tit for tat about things that, that he said on his podcast and so forth.

01:30:55

There's just been enough that it's, it's just not the direction I want to go. Doesn't mean though, that the door's not open on my end, uh, for having conversations with him.

01:31:06

If he wants to, if he, if he wanted to call me up today and ask my opinion on something, or he had a problem,

01:31:12

I, you know, he could always reach out to me and there's, you know, I'm friendly with him in that sense. Uh, but I, I can't endorse, you know, the fullness of his ministry.

01:31:23

That's basically where I'm at with that. So, um, thanks for asking. I don't know.

01:31:28

I might get a lot of blowback for this. It may be more questions, but I don't really want to talk about it a whole lot other than just to say what

01:31:35

I've already said. I think for, for those paying attention, it's fairly obvious kind of where I'm at and where he's at.

01:31:41

And, um, you know, I'm not going to be having Nick Fuentes on my program to platform him anytime soon, right?

01:31:47

I'm not going to be complimenting Nick Fuentes. Uh, I see guys like Nick Fuentes as huge problems in my mind as, as, uh,

01:31:55

I don't see him as a positive force really in any way, shape, or form. That would be a difference between Joel and I right there.

01:32:03

Okay. Stormy squat squad says, I just don't see the woman eager to marry. The guys don't have the credential.

01:32:08

So marrying them would be marrying down regardless of actual merit or character, just my anecdotal observations. You know, it's,

01:32:16

I, you look at numbers, you look at studies, and then they don't always give you the full picture.

01:32:22

Uh, I, one of the, the sort of based, this wouldn't even include pagan, right. And, um, parts of the

01:32:30

Catholic, right. I know I've heard it. Well, I don't know. There's like Nick Fuentes Catholic, right. I don't even know guys kind of on the edgy, right.

01:32:37

We'll put it that way, how they, they have a way of looking at this where men are essentially, um,

01:32:45

I think they it's evolutionary. Men are wired to be polygamists, have as many partners as possible.

01:32:51

That's just who they are. And women are wired to achieve a high caliber man. I've been hearing this for years and it's, it's kind of the manosphere stuff got into this.

01:33:00

I don't buy that by the way. I understand why people say it. I don't buy it, but that's, that's, uh, if you read like bronze age mindset, he gets into some of this.

01:33:09

I mean, he, I think he goes farther though. I'm trying to remember. It's been a while since I've read his book, but you know, he, he basically says that, um, you know, men, he, he, he actually says positive things about homosexuality, which is where a lot of this hate to sell you some of this based, you know, right wing anti women type anti, you know, feminist stuff.

01:33:30

It can, it can get into bisexuality and homosexuality, especially on the right. It's weird guys.

01:33:36

And I'm here to tell you that it's, it's definitely a presence. Um, I, what was the question again?

01:33:44

Oh, women. Right. Okay. I don't think that's accurate, but I think that's an explanation people are using to explain current circumstance where there's men who want to get married.

01:33:56

Think, look, I got a job. I'm trying to do what I need to do. And I, the market's just not there. Now there are women saying the same thing and I got both of them speaking to me.

01:34:07

I don't, I just can't find quality guys. But then in the men's mind, that means your standards are too high.

01:34:12

Women just have too high a standard. Then if they're not going for me, my, what

01:34:19

I tell people is I just really want you to meet someone. I don't want you to low your, lower your standards beyond what the

01:34:24

Bible has. The Bible does give standards, but I do want you to be at least honest that you're dealing with another person.

01:34:31

You're dealing with a man you're dealing with. If you want your civilization to survive, you got to get married. You'd have to have kids, right?

01:34:38

So it is going to require you to find someone. And this is the main thing I think that should be out there that is humble and teachable and willing to grow.

01:34:46

That means the wife that you have may not be able to cook a hot pocket. Like Elijah Schaefer says, she, she just reduced down to her sexuality because she, she can't, she can only make a hot pocket.

01:34:55

She can't cook. Guess what, men, you may have to marry someone who can't cook, but here's the question for you.

01:35:01

Is she willing to learn? Guess what? There's something called the internet. It's got recipes.

01:35:07

Guess what? There's something called women in your church. They'll give tutorials. Uh, guess what? Uh, you can experiment.

01:35:14

Um, if she, if she's willing to learn to do the kinds of things that wives traditionally have done, if she's willing to have children and raise them, even though if she doesn't have a positive example, it doesn't know how that's, you can work with that.

01:35:27

Same thing I would say to women about men, is he humble? Okay. So he says some off color things.

01:35:34

He comes from that world. Um, he is, uh, and I, that is a red flag, by the way,

01:35:41

I'm not saying not to, I'm not saying to just to ignore that. Um, he has some, some things that are, uh, about him that you don't like.

01:35:48

He's kind of immature in some ways. Well, maybe he hasn't been given the opportunities. Uh, like I just read about Gen Z, like maybe he hasn't even worked jobs or taken authority.

01:35:56

Like there's some immaturity there. Does he desire to be mature though? Does he, does he want to do the things that are necessary to get to that next level?

01:36:03

Is he seeking discipleship? Those are the things you got to ask yourself. What direction is he going in?

01:36:10

It takes a little time to tell that, but that's what, that's my recommendation for both men and women out there. I think that in creation,

01:36:17

God wired men to be with women and women to be with men. I don't think he wired them for polygamy. I don't think he wired them to,

01:36:23

I think he wired them to achieve, um, a partner who's going to fulfill their callings.

01:36:29

But I don't think it's like so out of reach that it's got to be a high status person. Who's a multimillionaire and every woman just wants that.

01:36:35

And they can't, you know, if you're a woman who's in love with that and you're not going to get it, then, you know, you need to lower your standards.

01:36:42

That shouldn't be the main thing you're looking for anyway at all. It's nice if a guy has money, but that's not, look,

01:36:47

God promised that he's going to provide for you. If you seek first his kingdom, find a guy who's seeking the kingdom of God. That's all it is.

01:36:54

Oh, he, um, he, you know, he, he has a background. He's got tattoos.

01:36:59

He's got, he was only saved recently. Okay. Then watch him for a little bit. Where's his heart at?

01:37:05

All right. I'm not saying to jump in anything foolish, but just, you know, watch the trajectory. That's my, and for older people, you, this is important.

01:37:14

I think to know you've got to be involved with the young people in your churches. If you're not, then it's going to be a disconnect and you'll lose your civilization.

01:37:21

You really will. Okay. Let's see. Uh, what else did I have here?

01:37:28

Um, we got some new comments coming in. I've got to land the plane here. Cause I'm going over an hour and a half.

01:37:36

Um, Isaiah says the guys at my work talk pornographic nearly nonstop.

01:37:42

What you said was encouraging. Thanks. Good verses to memorize. Yeah. And you're welcome, Isaiah. I've been in that by the way. So I'm going to pray for you right now.

01:37:48

Uh, as we end the pie, well, after I end the podcast, I will pray for you. Cause I know a lot of guys are in that. Some guys have a very hard time handling that.

01:37:55

Other guys can handle it better. I mean, it does, it is something that, you know, if you're around it a lot, it does degrade though.

01:38:02

It is not good. Uh, cosmic treason says, don't help me realize Robert Lee was the real man who saved the union, not only because of surrounding the grant, but also his actions in church after the war and lack of public ambition.

01:38:13

Yeah. Such a big difference between, Oh my goodness. Robert E. Lee was virtue. He didn't have counterfeit virtue, which was the subject of my talk.

01:38:20

And I'll post it when it's available. Um, selfish ambition, James warns about it different than loving your own, right?

01:38:28

Loving your own, having ambition for a goal that God's given you is so much different than wanting to platform yourself because the self platform or the person with selfish ambition will compromise to put themselves in the limelight and eventually it just, that is the end in and of itself.

01:38:45

It's not about advancing the mission, right? The person with ambition, which is Robert E. Lee, right?

01:38:50

Ambition doesn't care who gets the credit. They just want God to be glorified. And Robert E. Lee's vision after the war was he wanted young men.

01:38:57

This is true by the way. He became the president of Washington and Lee college because he wanted young men to be ready to take on the responsibilities of reconstruction.

01:39:05

It would be, he knew it'd be hard and he wanted virtuous men. And so he became the president of a college instead of becoming honestly president of the

01:39:15

United States. Robert E. Lee could have become the president of the United States. How is that John? He was the commander of the losing army because he had such respect in the union army.

01:39:23

There were banks in New York that wanted to pay him tons of money to use his image just to advertise their product in the

01:39:31

North. And he said, no, you can't use my image. My name's not for sale. My name's not for sale.

01:39:38

He had virtue. Yeah, it would platform. It would make him more famous. It would, he didn't care. He had a job.

01:39:45

He knew what it was. Now, one of the downsides of Robert E. Lee is none of his daughters got married.

01:39:52

And the explanation that I've heard is because their father was so virtuous. They could never find a man that that's the one flaw that I know of from Robert E.

01:39:59

Lee. He should have, if maybe I shouldn't say this cause

01:40:05

I don't know, maybe he did have this conversation, but, um, I think a good father lets his daughters know that no man is perfect and it's direction that's important.

01:40:19

But Robert E. Lee, an incredibly virtuous man, didn't have selfish ambition. And that's the man you want to get to know.

01:40:24

That's the man you want to follow after. And we got a lot of good examples of that from church history. So find some heroes and follow them.

01:40:33

Uh, that's my encouragement for the podcast today. I hope that was helpful for you all. God bless and more coming by now.