0:00

David French, welcome back. Well, thanks for

0:02

having me. And I we have you in person.

0:04

In concert. I'm here. You exist.

0:06

You exist. Soon

0:08

as I wonder, this is so much better than Zoom.

0:11

So you're in Wheaton to do some stuff at the college.

0:13

I am. I am. We took advantage of your

0:15

presence? I it's not

0:17

taking advantage. I was super happy to Oh, that's

0:19

very kind of you say, and maybe exploit is

0:21

the right one. That voice you're hearing

0:23

is Phil Fisher. What? Welcome to French Friday.

0:25

What I've never been here before? Never have. What

0:27

is this? How long have you guys

0:29

been doing this? I started to think you

0:31

didn't care. Oh. Oh,

0:34

David. I'm sorry. David, how could

0:36

you how could you say that? I'm sorry. Of course

0:38

he cares. Here's the theme song.

0:41

Yes. What day it is. Whoa. Whoa.

0:44

It's rain Friday. It's French Friday.

0:46

So grab your fries and say, hey.

0:48

Hey, the French is here today on

0:51

French. my day. It's

0:53

been my day. Alright.

0:55

What a great theme, so It's a brilliant theme

0:57

to my girl. In a way, Phil, you're here every week.

0:59

In that yeah. Because -- Yeah. -- in a very

1:01

tangible way

1:05

moving emotionally resonant. Mhmm.

1:07

Okay. Some they will Lisa. You can TBD.

1:10

But this is this is your you

1:12

two's this is you two's thing, and

1:14

you're just gonna pop this to's the plural

1:16

of or the possessive of I

1:18

think two is plural. Is it yet? Is

1:20

it you twos or used to? Used

1:22

to. I used to think this

1:24

was your thing. But now I think it's you

1:26

think the actual appropriate grammar

1:28

is the only double contraction in the English

1:30

language, y'alls. Yeah. This is y'alls

1:33

thing. Y'alls. Yeah. This is y'alls. Y'all would be

1:35

super helpful. which information Two

1:37

apostrophes in it. Y'all

1:39

possess it? Yeah. Of course. Okay.

1:41

Can we move on to something that people I

1:43

like tuning in for French Friday. Clearly.

1:47

It's already the best one. Okay. So

1:49

David, I wanna talk to you about a PC wrote in the

1:51

Atlantic, which is based on some data that came

1:53

out of Lifeway and Legionnaire

1:56

-- Yeah. -- ministries, Legionnaire. Legionnaire. Legionnaire.

1:58

Legionnaire. IgG shouldn't you? because that's

2:00

not the disease. It could be

2:02

given the data they uncovered. I guess so.

2:04

So they do is an annual survey of

2:07

of evangelicals -- Mhmm. -- and their

2:09

doctrine and beliefs. Now, I don't know if we

2:11

wanna spend time getting to what exactly is an evangelical

2:13

which is a hairy mess that

2:15

you uncovered you you get into on the piece.

2:18

We've talked about it a lot on past holy posts

2:20

like how you define evangelical is very, very

2:22

squishy. Yeah. But

2:24

the big thing they did come away with

2:26

is there's a whole lot of heretics who

2:28

identify as evangelical. So give

2:30

us your initial when you read the survey results,

2:33

what kind of jumped out to you front center. Yeah.

2:35

Well, the first thing I

2:37

did when I saw the survey results, because they were

2:39

pretty shocking in some ways, was actually

2:41

then say, how did they define evangelical? because

2:44

that really matters to what we're gonna talk it

2:46

does. Because if you're gonna say it's just a group

2:48

of self identified evangelicals, then

2:51

I'm sort of less concerned about that theology

2:54

because I know that includes a ton

2:56

of people, many of who don't

2:58

go to church at all, you know, so, you know,

3:01

We've seen all that research that a majority

3:03

of self described evangelicals in the US go

3:05

to church once a month or less. Right.

3:07

But this wasn't that

3:09

They had a four part test for evangelicals

3:12

and that four part test kind of

3:14

weeded out like the squishes.

3:17

the casual Christians. And so this is

3:20

people who actually not just say

3:22

they're evangelical, but assented to some

3:24

pretty important sort theological problem.

3:26

Here's those four parts. Yeah. So we're tracking.

3:29

The bible is the highest authority for which I

3:32

for what I believe. Mhmm. It is very

3:34

important for me to personally to encourage non Christians

3:36

to trust Jesus Christ as their savior. Jesus

3:38

Christ's death on the cross is the only sacrifice

3:40

that could remove the penalty of my sin. And

3:43

fourth, only those who trust in Jesus

3:45

Christ alone as their savior receive God's free

3:47

gift of eternal salvation. Right. So that's the parameters

3:49

in the survey of who is an evangelical. Right.

3:51

And so that what that's what makes everything

3:53

that follows so concerning

3:56

slash interesting. So even amongst

3:58

this group, A majority

4:00

of them don't even really know who

4:02

Jesus is.

4:03

So a majority in this group

4:06

were saying that Jesus is sort of the first and

4:08

greatest created being. In other

4:10

words, Jesus created by God, not

4:12

in the beginning was the word, and what the word

4:14

was with God, and the word was God. It's

4:17

more in the beginning, there was God and

4:19

God made Jesus, which is

4:21

a very different conception

4:24

of who Jesus. It's a very old heresy. It's

4:26

a very old heresy, held by a

4:28

majority. A

4:30

majority. In

4:31

addition, there was a very significant

4:34

minority who didn't

4:36

even really see Jesus as God

4:38

at all. And so that,

4:41

you know, you had amongst the self described

4:43

group of the infangilical select selected

4:46

non squishes who

4:49

don't understand who Jesus

4:51

is. Mhmm. And that

4:54

was I think that might be a problem. This

4:56

is a big problem. But in

4:58

what was fascinating to me, it. So

5:00

again, so you cannot say this is

5:02

like Squish Nation here. Ninety

5:05

four percent, I believe, agreed with the

5:07

statement that, you know, sex outside

5:09

of traditional marriage is

5:11

is a sin. Ninety plus percent

5:13

believe that abortion is a sin. Those

5:15

are numbers way outside of sort

5:17

of the

5:18

average American. So

5:19

these are non squish evangelicals

5:22

with very doctrinaire views

5:25

on sexual morality.

5:26

who didn't know the nature of Jesus.

5:29

And so what I tried to make what I

5:32

tried to explain is why Why

5:34

is that a problem? That's a problem. Why is

5:36

it a problem? So I'm I

5:38

was thinking when I read this, I thought

5:40

back to my high school experience -- Mhmm. -- I graduated

5:42

in nineteen ninety four. So

5:44

early nineties, I was a part of a

5:46

youth ministry, would go to big youth

5:48

rallies in Chicago -- Mhmm. -- with your puppets.

5:51

No.

5:51

That

5:52

came later. Oh, did it? It was just like you. It

5:54

was they were later than high school. Well, like,

5:56

end of my senior year. Oh, okay. I was one

5:58

unnaturally born -- Yeah. -- into complimentary.

6:02

Is anyone naturally born into

6:04

it? His wife. Okay. Well, she

6:06

was born into it. Okay. His wife's mother

6:08

led a puppet ministry. Yeah. And so when they

6:10

started dating, he got sucked.

6:12

Oh, shoot. Obviously, I had

6:14

ulterior motive. He's trying to please the

6:16

mother, future mother-in-law. Right. Anyway,

6:19

back on track. I'm thinking,

6:22

would I at, say, eighteen years old --

6:24

Mhmm. -- had I would have answered

6:27

these adoptional questions correctly. Or

6:29

would my peers have answered these doctorial

6:31

questions correctly? I would like to think I would

6:33

have because, you know, I'm smarter than the average

6:35

bear. Right. But I'm

6:37

pretty sure most of my peers would not. Where would

6:39

that knowledge have come from at that

6:41

age? Well, I okay. I was

6:44

earlier than most people, very inquisitive

6:46

about my faith in what I believed in my life. So I was

6:48

reading Lewis, and I was reading all kinds of weird stuff in

6:50

high school. But I'm

6:52

pretty sure every one of my peers

6:54

would have answered the sexual

6:56

ethics questions -- Yes. -- very

6:58

concretely and definitively. So even

7:01

thirty years ago, that's what was important.

7:03

That's right. Everyone had it drilled into

7:05

them that if you are a Christian, these are the boundaries

7:07

of your sexual behavior and

7:09

all, you know, whether it's arianism or trinitarian

7:11

theology, that's whatever. But you better

7:13

not -- Yeah. -- cross these lines.

7:15

Right. Right. Don't touch those parts.

7:17

That's right. Right? Well, you can you can touch

7:19

heresy. but don't touch those

7:21

buttons. Well, you

7:23

know, one of the things is this is part

7:25

of the product of the obsession with

7:27

line drawings. So you have this country

7:29

that is still majority Christian.

7:31

In other words, a majority identifies Christian.

7:34

And so lots of churches have been

7:37

really interested in exploring who's really

7:39

Christian and who's not really Christian

7:41

for a long time. And I'm the same as you. I grew

7:43

up in a southern very conservative

7:46

slash fundamentalist youth group, and

7:48

nobody had any doubt at all

7:51

about sexual morality, but mass

7:54

confusion about sort

7:56

of fundamental theological

7:59

realities and conceptions of the Christian

8:01

faith and I was talking to somebody about

8:03

this just today, and I was saying, you

8:05

know, I grew up understanding

8:07

the gospel in large part because of my parents.

8:09

My but my

8:11

wife, she grew up in the same denomination

8:13

that I did, and she

8:15

had never heard the gospel

8:18

fully presented until

8:21

I presented it to her when we

8:23

were dating. And you would

8:25

think how is that remotely possible?

8:28

How

8:28

is it remotely? But

8:30

then

8:30

you can start to think about, for example,

8:32

if you go to a lot of churches now,

8:35

your sermon series is gonna be unwarenting.

8:37

then it's gonna be on career and then it's

8:39

gonna be on, you know, topical

8:41

things or when you're in a youth

8:43

group, a lot of youth group is sort

8:45

of here's this fun

8:47

thing we all do together as Christians.

8:50

Here are the moral rules. You know, here are

8:52

the here here Christians don't do

8:54

x y and z. how many

8:56

times do people sort of sit down and say,

8:59

in the beginning -- Mhmm. --

9:01

dot dot dot. Do you think and Skye, do you

9:03

this is true. Do you think most pastors are pretty

9:05

sure they covered that already? Probably

9:07

or they assume parents and households

9:09

are covered? Yeah. Yeah. And,

9:12

but here's the problem. Like, even in the four

9:14

points that are listed in this in this

9:16

survey that identify someone as

9:18

an evangelical or even the

9:20

popular way that I heard the gospel

9:22

as a college student, like, the

9:24

deity of Jesus is not essential

9:26

in the way it's popularly presented.

9:28

True because it's Jesus died for my sins on the cross. Yeah. What does

9:30

that mean he's uncreated? And he's God's

9:32

son. We focus on his god's son. God's

9:34

send his only son. Sons

9:36

are not eternal. Mhmm. Right.

9:38

So there's a lot of assumption even

9:40

in the stuff we are representing. And

9:43

and also one of the things that's

9:45

in if you've ever been involved in teaching

9:47

at all, you know repetition is

9:49

key. Mhmm. It is not the case. And this is

9:51

something -- Say that again. repetition

9:53

is key. Okay. Yeah.

9:55

Thank you. And,

9:57

you know, when you're when you're writing and

9:59

you're trying to inject ideas into the

10:01

bloodstream, one of the ways that you one of

10:03

the challenges is how do I say the

10:06

same thing differently

10:10

so that regular readers are

10:12

not bored, but at the same

10:14

time new readers are engaging with an

10:16

idea. This is a long time challenge,

10:18

and so I think that one of the things

10:20

that we have to do is maybe

10:22

hammer in these eternal

10:24

truths about Jesus with

10:26

this much emphasis or more

10:28

and more repetition than

10:30

you hammer in because it's not the case

10:32

that I was went to youth group and only

10:34

one time, you know, for orientation

10:37

orientation freshman year don't have

10:39

sex until you're married, and then that was

10:41

that. Right. It was it was drilled over and over and over and

10:43

over and over. Drilled and drilled and drilled what are the

10:45

tactics and what are the strategies and here's, you

10:47

know, every you know, is a a

10:49

omnipresent topic. Okay. So that

10:51

relates to research done years

10:53

ago by Cara Powell. You know, Kara, fuller youth

10:55

institute? Yes. Yes. She's been on numerous times.

10:57

She's a good friend. She's written brilliantly about

10:59

this. So if I'm recalling some of the

11:01

data they uncovered, they studied

11:03

high school and post high school students.

11:05

And how many of them stuck with the

11:07

faith after graduating high school? And I think it

11:09

was fifty percent or something to end up walking away from

11:11

their faith within eighteen months of graduating

11:13

high school. And and then they looked at, well, what was true

11:15

of the students who left in those who stayed?

11:18

And one

11:18

of the markers

11:19

was those who believe that

11:22

their faith the the metaphor she uses is

11:24

is your faith is a a set of behaviors that

11:26

you wear. Mhmm. And if you

11:28

fail in those behaviors, then you can't

11:30

be a Christian anymore. And of course, the

11:32

most critical behavior is

11:34

sexual purity. Right? And so what

11:36

they found is students who stayed

11:38

the walked away struggled equally --

11:40

Mhmm. -- with sexual purity issues.

11:42

But the ones who believed that that was central

11:44

to the faith ended up walking

11:46

away from it. Whereas those who understood,

11:48

yeah, this is something I'm called to, but I can

11:50

still struggle with this -- Mhmm. -- and follow

11:52

Jesus and stay with the faith. So between

11:54

the lines of the report, what scares

11:56

me is we are essentially inoculating

11:59

the people to the gospel because when they invariably

12:02

do struggle, with sexual issues, they're

12:04

gonna conclude, I can't be a Christian. Right.

12:06

And this is this is the root, I think, and

12:08

this is something I wanna write about. This is a root,

12:10

I think, of a lot of deconstruction. Yep.

12:13

So if you have advertised

12:16

Christianity as it is a set of

12:18

behaviors, it's a code of behaviors. And again, this

12:20

is something you just see online, The

12:22

fact that I'm not saying that Christianity is

12:24

centered around sexual morality does not

12:26

mean that I abandon

12:29

sexual morality. but the

12:31

idea that you the idea that you

12:33

present Christianity as as

12:35

sexual morality or as any

12:37

set of moral codes. And that is

12:39

the thing when you

12:41

then encounter a Christian church, which

12:43

is going to be riddled

12:45

with people who are struggling with

12:47

sexual morality or they're struggling with

12:49

alcohol, or they're struggling with drugs or they're

12:51

struggling with greed or all of

12:53

these sins. And

12:55

that's the thing. Mhmm.

12:57

It's no wonder people deconstruct. Like,

13:00

what is there then? What

13:02

is this thing then if

13:04

it's this collection of people say,

13:06

faith is me doing or not doing ABC

13:09

and d, and then I spend ten minutes here and

13:11

I see a lot of ABC and d,

13:13

then what is this place?

13:15

And and I think that that's that is a

13:17

source of sort of that deconstruction. It's

13:19

a twelve step group where everyone's still

13:21

on step two. Right? And

13:23

and the thing that's deceptive about it

13:25

is you put somebody on their polygraph,

13:27

you know, who's teaching

13:29

this this sort of moralized view,

13:32

ninety percent of her gonna say, oh, I'm not legalistic.

13:34

I'm not legalistic. I've never met a

13:36

legalist. No. Never met a confession. Or

13:38

or a racist. No? No. Right. They don't

13:40

exist. No. Yeah. But what is

13:42

it, you know, it's it's you

13:44

you're defined by, you know, much

13:46

more what you spend your time on --

13:48

Right. -- than sort of internally how

13:50

you I label yourself. And

13:52

if you're just spending all of this time

13:55

drawing these lines and you especially see

13:57

this all over sort of

13:59

conservative Christian commentary where

14:01

the real ones the real ones

14:03

are gonna stand up on on sexual

14:06

morality. Now, that's

14:08

not super consistent because

14:11

The real ones are also supposed to

14:13

support a president

14:15

who was in a playboy movie,

14:17

but that's different because

14:20

reasons Well, he

14:22

wasn't a Christian yet. Okay. He was

14:24

a baby. He was a baby. He was a baby

14:26

Christian. He was still in utero. He got the baby

14:28

part. Right? There's

14:30

another part of this though that I wanna talk

14:32

about. It's one thing to say, a

14:34

bunch of evangelicals don't have any idea

14:36

who Jesus is or any of these court adoptions of

14:38

the faith. and they have centralized

14:41

sexual morality. Mhmm. Why

14:43

haven't they emphasized other areas of

14:45

Christian ethics? Like,

14:47

love your neighbor. Right? Or

14:49

have the freedom of spirit. The freedom of spirit. So

14:51

why is it all what I

14:53

call crotch Christianity, which

14:55

is that center of the

14:57

universe The center of center of

14:59

gravity is from the navel

15:01

to the knees. Right. Yeah. And everything

15:03

else is superfluous. Well, I

15:06

mean, there's part of it is

15:08

because in a lot of ways that sort

15:10

of a central focus

15:12

of our culture more broadly.

15:14

So Yeah. There is a

15:16

we live in a very sexualized culture

15:18

and and a ton of that sexuality

15:20

is contrary to biblical

15:22

guidelines, and so there's gonna be a counter

15:24

cultural aspect to Christianity in a

15:26

hyper sexualized culture. But

15:29

then when you overlay on top

15:31

of that, politics,

15:33

when you overlay on top of

15:35

that, our own sort of

15:37

tendency to internally try to line draw

15:39

within the church. all of that comes

15:41

together to create this

15:43

kind of toxic stew that

15:45

says, okay, because

15:47

the world is emphasizing

15:50

sexuality so much. We

15:52

have to emphasize sexuality so

15:54

much. Yeah. It made me it made me wonder if you go

15:56

back to the nineteen twenties if

15:59

there were youth groups in the nineteen

16:01

twenties, what were they emphasizing then

16:03

when there was an assumption that

16:05

you were that chastity

16:07

was the was the goal, you know. And

16:09

it is really the whole culture did.

16:11

Yeah. Right? So it so was the

16:13

nineteen eighties when we started to

16:15

obsessed with abstance and, you know, pushing

16:17

against the culture, is it really just or are we

16:19

just reactionary all the time and we're

16:21

reacting to the sixties? A huge part of

16:23

it is is reaction. Now,

16:25

And one of the things that, you know, I

16:27

think conservatives are prone to this and people

16:29

on the right are prone to this is they're whatever

16:33

my opponents are emphasizing I'm

16:35

going to emphasize from the opposite perspective

16:37

rather than saying, okay,

16:39

they might be unbalanced in

16:41

their view of X or Y or Z. My

16:44

alternative is not to be

16:46

counter unbalanced. It's to

16:48

present the sort of the holistic view.

16:50

Right. And in the thing that I talk

16:52

about in the pieces, look, when

16:54

you center around Jesus,

16:57

That is the opposite of moral license.

17:00

Right? That's if you compare

17:03

yourself to Jesus, that

17:05

is is a a humbling thing.

17:07

Mhmm. I mean, and and

17:09

it's not I mean, on so many

17:11

fronts, like, what kind of person

17:13

am I compared to Jesus

17:15

Christ? that's kind of a shattering

17:18

comparison. So that is it's not like

17:20

now I'm gonna recent around Jesus.

17:22

Anything goes. Right. I'm gonna

17:24

around Jesus, and God forgive me.

17:27

I'm a sinner. Mhmm. And then

17:29

if and if you look at, you know, if you go down

17:31

the fruit of the spirit, you say these are supposed

17:33

to be appearing in my life. And look, self

17:36

control is one of them. And the most

17:38

important thing is love of god and love of

17:40

neighbor. So how do I

17:42

show love for this

17:44

like and demonstrate self

17:46

control. Mhmm. And you get to a

17:48

sexual ethic without having to start at a

17:50

sexual ethic. Right. Right. Exactly.

17:52

I think I just figured it all out. Thank

17:55

you. Good night.

17:57

Drive, say, who are you waving? Do you have

17:59

the the audience? Oh, right. The audience

18:01

is Julie and Jason are sitting That's our

18:03

own incident. Okay. So some of this

18:05

will be on YouTube. Oh, that's And there will be people

18:07

looking at your your smiling mug.

18:09

Sometime ago, I had this really

18:11

disheartening conversation with a

18:13

church leader who was of

18:15

significant influence. And I was

18:17

talking to him about what would qualify or

18:19

disqualify? Was it Rick Warren? No.

18:21

Okay. What would qualify or disqualify

18:23

a pastor

18:24

from leadership? Mhmm.

18:26

And I

18:27

said, you know, if a pastor is struggling significantly

18:29

with sexual purity, the answer came really

18:32

quick. Oh, yeah. We would remove that beer sound

18:34

immediately. Even if they confessed to it,

18:36

even if they wanted, you know, there wasn't Uh-huh.

18:38

So he had actually committed a whatever. He

18:40

just we touched the third rail. Exactly. They're gone.

18:42

And then I asked, well, what about a pastor?

18:45

who is proven to be utterly

18:47

biblically and theologically illiterate --

18:49

Mhmm. -- who is just spouting off stuff

18:51

from the pulpit that is not consistent

18:53

with the faith or the the scriptures.

18:55

And this leader said, well, we would get that

18:57

person help. We would get the the assistance

18:59

they need to learn and

19:02

grow. I'm like, really, like, that's a

19:04

significant

19:04

position of influence, but it kinda

19:07

emphasizes

19:07

idea. Well, doctrine, we're not

19:09

super

19:09

concerned about that. But darn it,

19:12

you've got to keep your sexual boundaries super tight.

19:14

Wait, you know, and the other thing that is

19:16

kind of perverse about all of this

19:19

is that when you sort of

19:21

emphasize a sin, is it sort of

19:23

the sin, it

19:25

has an effect of

19:27

making that sin sort of that

19:29

more alluring and mysterious.

19:31

It's the law it's old concept that the law

19:33

provokes. Right. And so

19:35

it creates these taboos and it

19:37

creates this sort of obsession That's the

19:39

meaning of forbidden fruit. Exactly. Yeah.

19:41

Exactly. So this is the forbidden

19:43

fruit, and then all of a sudden people are

19:45

like, that

19:45

fruit looks pretty nice.

19:47

And,

19:47

I mean, we all have a sin nature, and we're

19:49

inclined to always kinda look around at

19:51

the various kinds of forbidden fruit and go,

19:53

oh, tasty. But when you

19:56

put the one there, and you say

19:58

this is the thing. Mhmm. You know,

19:59

there's a part of that that perversely enough

20:02

starts to -- Right. -- make it more saline

20:05

into the community's life. If you

20:07

if every youth group meeting starts out with don't

20:09

think about elephants. Every

20:12

youth group kid's gonna be thinking about So what we

20:14

need to do is start every youth meeting with, don't you dare go

20:16

down the road of arianism? Don't

20:20

think about it. Don't think about it.

20:23

Okay. So Taking

20:25

a step back, other data that's

20:27

come out in recent months has

20:29

shown that for a lot of evangelicals, they define

20:31

themselves increasingly culturally and

20:33

politically. Mhmm. not theologically -- Right. --

20:35

not not historically orthodox in any

20:37

sort of way. And this survey comes out and says that they

20:39

really define themselves morally,

20:41

sexually. So when you put all that together,

20:44

we're beginning to get a picture of American evangelicalism

20:47

that is is kind

20:49

of really really drawn to

20:50

Christian nationalism to

20:54

rapidly conservative politics to owning the

20:56

lips, to sort

20:58

of ethnocentricism and

21:01

sexual purity. then

21:02

doesn't feel

21:03

like a group that most people would wanna be

21:05

a part of as far as I think it's

21:07

doing quite well. Yeah.

21:10

Well but I would say it's

21:12

doing well as an ideological movement.

21:14

I would say that that ideological

21:16

move and marked by

21:19

hypocrisy and their personal conduct.

21:21

Yeah. If you go, you know,

21:23

some of these new right gatherings,

21:26

for example, especially if young, new

21:28

rights, sort of, Trump era conservatives,

21:31

it's like you could hold them up

21:33

side by side and say, frat

21:35

party or new right, you

21:37

know, new right convention. Mhmm. And you'd

21:39

kinda have a hard time distinguishing. And,

21:42

you know, one of the things, I mean,

21:44

CPAC some of these other, you know,

21:46

TP USA's student conferences where

21:48

you've had women in bikinis firing money

21:50

into a crowd. And -- Right. -- and someone's

21:53

standing in crowd and saying, when can we start shooting?

21:55

Yeah. And TPSA so TPSA

21:57

which said this woman in bikinis firing money

21:59

in the crowd, now has ATPSA

22:02

faith. Oh, so they're

22:04

they're nuns shooting

22:07

cannons a full of money? Yeah. So, I

22:09

mean, a lot of what's happening

22:11

in in the

22:12

new ride is actually pretty decadent.

22:14

There's a lot of decadence. That's the idea that

22:16

you made the very valid point that we have a

22:18

hyper sexualized culture and part of the

22:21

church is reacting to that. It's gonna be

22:23

countercyclical. We also have a

22:25

profoundly materialistic culture. Mhmm.

22:27

But I don't see the church reacting

22:29

to that. nearly as much. We're not talking about poverty

22:31

and distribution of wealth and caring

22:33

for those with less. Like, that's not a

22:35

central moral element that we're picking up in this

22:37

data. Not nearly

22:39

as much. I mean and again

22:41

so then what you do, if

22:43

you're not centering Jesus,

22:45

which is I said in the in the piece extremely

22:48

humbling, but hopeful at the same time

22:50

because I can't stack up to

22:52

Jesus, but Jesus paid the debt,

22:54

humbling, and hopeful. What ends

22:56

up happening when you're emphasizing selective

22:58

items of morality is

23:01

that creates arrogance and division. So

23:03

you've you've subcategorized, well, hear the

23:05

hear the real sense. I'm good

23:07

on those. Mhmm. I'm good on

23:10

those. But then anybody with half a brain can look and

23:12

go, well, what

23:14

about if you're great on a b and c, but

23:16

isn't there a DEF GHI

23:18

JK? And you

23:20

and you're kinda really not great on that. So

23:22

why are you so

23:23

prideful? Well, even even

23:25

if they think they've

23:26

kept their sexual ethics within the

23:29

boundaries, this is exactly Jesus point in the sermon on

23:31

the mount. Even the man who's looked lustfully on

23:33

the witness committed adultery in his heart, so don't

23:35

be so proud of the fact that you even

23:37

have that Exactly. So the no one gets off

23:39

Scott free here. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah,

23:41

you're right. It does build this hierarchy, the sense

23:43

of superiority, and self righteousness. I mean,

23:45

think about the culture you see

23:47

online of sort of what's called

23:49

theobros or whatever. If

23:51

you're gonna look if you're gonna read

23:53

like theobro Twitter, or

23:55

you're going to read sort of religious,

23:58

Christian nationalist

23:59

literature. Is

24:01

it sort of reeking of the fruit

24:03

of the spirit? No. I

24:07

mean, no. I you know, and

24:09

and the absolute

24:12

cruelty poured out upon people

24:14

like Beth Moore or Russel Moore or others

24:16

who are dissenters from sort of a

24:18

a mainstream political view within

24:20

a denomination. Just Vitriol,

24:24

and then they're gonna hold themselves out and

24:26

say, look to me

24:28

as sort of the guide, the moral

24:30

and theological guide. Well,

24:32

have you

24:33

read, like,

24:34

Galatians and and shouldn't

24:36

you be

24:37

repenting here for

24:39

the cruelty

24:40

that you've displayed, for the

24:42

lies that you tell,

24:44

for the deceptions that you

24:47

spread, but you got it right on sexual morality and

24:49

that's gonna do what? That that's not the blood

24:51

of Jesus. Well, maybe you should wrap

24:53

up here. But I think that Theo

24:55

bros is a good example because I think a lot of those people at

24:57

least the more well known ones probably

25:00

have very orthodox theology

25:02

super. Right? So there's the other

25:04

side of it is even when you get your diurnal ducks

25:06

in a row. Of course. If the fruit of the spirit's

25:08

not there, big whoop. I mean,

25:10

again, the summer on the mountain Matthew

25:12

chapter seven Jesus says many will come to me in

25:14

that day and say Lord Lord, did we not

25:16

reach your name and cast out demons and do money works?

25:18

He says away from me, I never knew you. So

25:20

just having right doctrine. Mhmm.

25:22

In and of itself is not sufficient

25:24

either. It's that life in communion with

25:26

Christ, that centering of Jesus so that

25:28

his life is revealed through you in

25:30

the fruit of the spirit, that's what makes a

25:32

difference. So it feels like we can air on either

25:34

side. Oh, first, it's all about sexual

25:36

morality or it's all about right doctrine

25:38

and it's all about Jesus. Yeah. Well, that's why,

25:40

you know, centering around knowing Jesus

25:42

that that humility that comes with

25:44

it of, like, gosh. you

25:47

know, I fall short, you know.

25:50

And consistently through scripture, we see

25:52

when somebody's exposed to God.

25:55

I am undone. You know, I fall

25:57

short, but then that incredible

25:59

hope, you know, the hope,

25:59

that atonement, that's incredibly

26:02

that incredible marvelous hope.

26:04

is such

26:04

a contrast to the

26:06

pride in

26:07

your morality or the pride in your theology

26:10

where you can say I

26:13

have achieved ABC or

26:15

d, and therefore and and

26:17

that leads to the pride, and that leads to

26:19

the division.

26:20

Should we

26:24

move on to the next? Yeah. Move on. Okay. Let's

26:26

go. What this is fun? What what's the next

26:28

one? Would you You said you had a provocative

26:30

question. Oh, do we do a

26:32

provocative question? do that? Or is that, like, a little

26:34

snippet? No. It's a it's a well, it

26:36

that leads into some of this. Okay. Well, you

26:39

you you lead this. You follow everything

26:41

that happened at the National Conservative

26:43

Conference. I did not attend. Yet,

26:45

I I followed a lot of it. Yeah. Yeah. And

26:47

just some of the quotes, you know, Al

26:50

Mueller saying closing it out by saying,

26:52

insofar as conservatism as a

26:54

movement has a future, It is a

26:56

future that is going to be increasingly

26:58

tied to explicit theological

27:01

claims. That was that was his

27:03

closing statement. He said

27:05

that woke religion, the woke religion

27:07

that is raising itself up is the official

27:09

state ideology. So we have to

27:11

oppose that. by

27:12

being

27:13

theological, more theological

27:15

in our conservatism. Josh

27:17

Hollie said, without the Bible, there is no

27:20

modernity. Without the Bible, there is no America.

27:22

I submit to you

27:24

that what the left is after is

27:26

our real inheritance, the Bible.

27:29

what they particularly dislike about America

27:31

is our dependence on biblical teaching. Okay.

27:33

Well, we just saw

27:34

the data that most Christians don't even believe

27:36

what's in the bible. So what does he I mean,

27:39

that we've Roger Roger Roger

27:41

was there. He spoke. He said I

27:43

firmly believe that we American Christians

27:45

and in truth, Americans of any traditional

27:48

faith are now living in exile. We don't know how

27:50

much time we have before the persecution

27:52

starts, but we can be confident that it is

27:54

likely to come. the persecution is coming.

27:56

How come how come we can't

27:57

be confident in God's presence with us no

27:59

matter what comes? isn't

28:02

that, like, the rest of the statement? Shouldn't that be the I don't need

28:04

it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the so the

28:06

group, they signed a statement that said

28:08

the bible should be taught as the source

28:10

of shared western civilization in

28:13

schools and universities. And

28:15

and the godfather by Martin and

28:17

that state power should be used to

28:19

bring about these ends, that we need

28:21

to reject the Reaganism of

28:24

small government and not using the government to solve

28:27

problems and embrace a new

28:29

conservatism of

28:31

using and then Rhonda Senes gets up and

28:33

speak and says, look at me. I

28:35

took at the Disney. I took

28:38

at the sports team. What did he do? He

28:40

wouldn't let which sports team

28:42

in in Florida was gonna build a practice

28:44

facility with some state funds, but they

28:46

had just oh, I forgotten. I

28:48

forgot did that. Yeah. They had oh,

28:50

he blocked funding for a new Tampa Bay Ray's

28:52

training facility because of the team's

28:55

social activism. they had just donated to

28:57

a gun safety advocacy group.

29:00

Yeah. on that. Is this is is

29:02

this okay. Is this

29:04

conservatism,

29:04

and a couple

29:07

of things, should we

29:09

stop

29:09

trying to figure out what conservatism

29:11

is and just try to

29:14

walk in the way of Jesus and

29:16

a couple

29:17

other things. So

29:20

I'm gonna give you one more one more question.

29:23

Okay. Okay. We talked on the podcast a couple weeks

29:25

ago about a rather provocative point of

29:27

view about evangelicalism, that

29:29

there were phases of evangelicalism they're

29:32

so defined by American culture -- Mhmm.

29:34

-- that it's a legitimate question

29:36

to say is evangelicalism

29:39

nothing more than what

29:41

Christianity looks like in America on any

29:43

given day. And if

29:45

so, is there really

29:47

no such thing as evangelicalism apart from

29:49

American culture. So I wanna turn that around and

29:51

talk about conservatism. And say,

29:54

if conservatism is

29:56

just whatever the group that's, you know,

29:58

kicking against the Goads or

29:59

pushing against the elites is promoting

30:02

that day is there such a thing

30:04

as conservatism? Oh,

30:06

boy. That's a

30:09

lot. So Thank you. So the answer of

30:11

is what is conservatism? Or is there such

30:13

a thing as conservatism? I I

30:15

mean, asking that question all the time

30:18

myself. Okay? Okay. So, you know,

30:20

every time we ask what is

30:22

evangelicalism, you're asking what is conservatism.

30:24

So you know, it depends on how nerdy

30:26

you are a a person is is if someone

30:28

tries to ask me what is sort of my ideology.

30:31

So if I'm gonna get super nerdy

30:33

in precise. So I'm gonna say I'm a pro life classical liberal.

30:35

Okay? Okay? Well, that would

30:37

have marked to me as a conservative

30:40

in years past, which, you know, a view of limited

30:43

government, a view of the inherent

30:45

dignity of man the

30:47

the sort of the founding principles of where in doubt

30:49

by our creator were certain inalienable rights,

30:52

checks and balances, protections

30:54

of individual liberty, A

30:57

lot of the right is saying no to that. Mhmm. So

30:59

you I I when you were talking to me, I

31:01

promise I was a texting. I was pulling up on my

31:03

phone the actual the the text

31:06

of the national conservative statement

31:08

on God and religion. 0000

31:10

This is good. Let's hear this. Let's hear this. So

31:12

I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but I'll I'll get to

31:14

the baby. I might have to throw up where

31:17

a Christian majority exists, public

31:19

life should be rooted in Christianity and

31:21

its moral vision which should be honored by the

31:23

state and other institutions both public

31:25

and private. At the same time, Jews and other

31:27

religious minorities are to be protected in the observance

31:29

of their own tradition in the free governance of their

31:32

communal institutions and in all matters

31:34

pertaining to the rearing In education, their children,

31:36

adult individuals should be protected from

31:38

religious or ideological coercion

31:40

in their

31:40

private lives and in

31:43

their homes. Oh, what

31:45

about their public

31:46

lives? Yeah. So

31:49

what you're talking about here

31:51

is a rejection in

31:53

many fundamental ways of sort of the classical liberal vision

31:56

of the founding and an

31:58

embrace of the

32:00

religious supremacy of

32:02

a different strand of American history. Put put another

32:04

way. You're talking about a rejection of

32:06

the constitution. Yes. I I don't

32:08

understand how these people can

32:11

That's how bad things have gotten. Well, they can present

32:13

themselves as the champions of the country and

32:15

champions of the constitution -- Yeah. -- when they are

32:17

explicitly wanting to dismantle it. Yeah.

32:19

So if you go if you look at American history and

32:22

we we are very familiar with the story

32:24

when it comes to race. So when it comes to

32:26

race, you had

32:27

slavery And then you

32:29

had the declaration of independence, and the declaration of independence

32:31

is a set of

32:32

principles that contradict slavery. Right?

32:35

And so over the course of several

32:37

hundred years, we had

32:39

it took us that much time to

32:42

bring the laws of

32:44

the land in conformity with

32:47

the principles of the decoration and the text of

32:49

the constitution. You know, that that

32:51

was harmonizing the and it's still an

32:53

imperfect thing. Right. It's aspirational document

32:55

that we are It's an aspirational document that we're

32:57

still aspiring to to form a more

32:59

perfect union. What a lot of national

33:01

conservatives and forget is

33:03

the same principle applies to American

33:05

religious liberty. That American religious

33:07

liberty, the aspirational statements of

33:10

say the founding documents, the ass the

33:12

the actual language of the first amendment, for

33:15

a long time, America didn't

33:17

match up to that. what you had was in

33:19

Ross Delta is used this term, a soft

33:21

establishment of protestantism.

33:23

Mhmm. And I would say a soft establishment

33:25

of white protestantism because black

33:28

protestants did not feel like they had an established

33:30

religion. And so,

33:32

you know, even going into the early

33:35

twentieth century, You had blame

33:37

amendments all over America thirty seven

33:39

states that had anti Catholic

33:41

state amendments, you had the Black

33:44

Protestant Church, relentlessly facing

33:47

persecution. And so the

33:49

aspirational ideas of American religious

33:51

liberty weren't didn't start to come into

33:53

fruition really truly until much

33:55

more recently. And so what

33:57

they're essentially wanting to do is

34:00

say, a lot of that religious sort of that

34:02

legal equality that people of various fates

34:04

have enjoyed in in a kind of historical blip

34:06

in American history. That's

34:09

not good. Let's go back.

34:11

Mhmm. But here's what here's what

34:13

they're neglecting or maybe they're not neglecting it.

34:15

They know this will happen and hope to come

34:17

out on on top. As soon as

34:20

you establish a doctrine of Christian

34:22

religious supremacy,

34:24

that's not ecumenical. Mhmm.

34:26

It's then which strand of Christianity? I mean,

34:28

and we're already seeing if you follow these things

34:30

closely and God bless you if you do

34:33

that you have patience is that

34:36

There's a break between the protestant, Theonomous

34:38

types, and the Catholic integralists

34:40

already. Mhmm. And there

34:42

was a fight between Yuromazani on

34:46

one of the organizers of Natcon and

34:48

some of the Catholic post

34:50

Liberals that broke out on Twitter because some

34:52

of the Catholic post Liberals who

34:55

were were the original Natcon,

34:58

weren't at this new one, and they're gonna have a

35:00

competing event at another university. And

35:02

so as soon as you establish

35:04

Christian supremacy, you

35:06

start fighting that that you want religious

35:08

wars? Exactly. have religious so

35:10

much of the American founding generation looked across

35:13

the ocean that you're up. and all of

35:15

the chaos that had unfolded there for centuries religious wars and and discrete.

35:17

And that's why they created a

35:20

secular federal

35:22

government. in order to create space and opportunity for people of diverse

35:24

space. One of my favorite stories, and I've told this, I

35:26

think, on one of our getting school episodes,

35:30

is about the constitutional convention where everyone is at, you know,

35:32

loggerheads about different controversies

35:34

and no one was getting

35:36

anywhere. Benjamin Franklin, the senior statesman,

35:40

stands up and says, we should invite ministers to come in every

35:42

morning to pray for our efforts

35:44

here. And the convention

35:48

resoundingly voted down

35:50

that proposal. They did not want any ministers

35:52

coming in and praying as they were writing the constitution.

35:54

And the reason I think it was Madison who ended

35:56

up writing down the notes why they

35:59

were already

35:59

divided by so many issues. They didn't wanna be

36:02

divided over, well, which minister and which nomination,

36:04

and which church. They said, we're just gonna leave

36:06

religion out. And if that was true two hundred and fifty years

36:08

ago, it's still true today.

36:10

Yeah. You can't just say we're gonna be and even

36:12

the data we saw in the

36:14

previous story majority of evangelicals don't even hold orthodox Christian beliefs.

36:16

Mhmm. So are they the ones who are gonna pick what's

36:18

Christian in this country? Well, and and the other thing

36:20

is if if you're saying

36:22

that we

36:24

want Christian influence in the United States. I have good news for

36:26

you. The biggest

36:27

one of the most important

36:28

voting blocks in all of America

36:32

on both the Democratic and Republican side are

36:34

bible believing Christians. So you

36:36

have the

36:36

white evangelical

36:37

voting block goes

36:39

to church more than the average

36:42

American says they believe in the bible,

36:44

they're the foundation of the

36:46

Republican Party. Democrats

36:48

try winning without black protestants.

36:50

Like,

36:51

their democratic

36:52

party is nowhere.

36:54

without its its core base of

36:56

black American Protestant Christians

36:59

who are bible believing. And so

37:01

that's one of these things

37:04

that Imagine sort of the the arrogance of saying that

37:06

a vote for a Republican is faithful,

37:08

and a vote for a Democrat is unfazed.

37:11

Was that Al Mueller? Yeah. He just said

37:13

that last week. And that's a that's

37:16

an extraordinary statement when you're

37:18

talking about millions -- Mhmm. -- of millions of bible

37:20

believing Americans who are the foundation

37:22

of both Democratic parties

37:24

and the Republicans. Didn't he say something very

37:26

similar to

37:28

maybe in the twenty twenty election cycle. And then somebody asked him, well, what

37:30

about Black? Yeah. What happens American And he

37:32

said they vote the way they vote for

37:34

historic So they get a they

37:36

get a pass. They get a pass. We'll let

37:38

them buy because maybe, you

37:40

know, they don't know better, which is

37:43

so just condescending. It's either

37:45

remarkably patronizing or

37:48

you haven't bought this through well enough.

37:50

Yeah. So, okay, I wanna go back to

37:52

my question though. regardless of Christianity.

37:55

What is conservatism? And is

37:57

it a thing? And does it

37:59

exist? Or is it hopefully

38:01

a reaction to whenever someone wants to

38:03

change something that someone doesn't want

38:06

changed. Yeah.

38:08

So wanna take out the organ.

38:10

I'm a conservative. You're a progressive. So

38:13

yeah. So let's let's try to parse this

38:15

as well as we can -- Okay. --

38:18

with an idea with the notion and understanding don't

38:20

know what a conservative is right now.

38:22

So I'm trying to hang

38:24

on to that word as

38:27

meaning something independent of being

38:29

on the right. So I will

38:31

tend I will say

38:34

what? Well, right and left

38:36

are oppositional. and they're not

38:38

necessarily ideologically opposition,

38:40

they're politically opposition. Yeah. So okay.

38:42

So is that useful? Is

38:45

that a useful dichotomy? It's useful to

38:47

the extent that it identifies combatants in the way

38:49

that are

38:50

we supposed to be combatants? No.

38:53

Okay. Yeah. So is it a useful

38:56

dichotomy? It's describing

38:58

something

39:00

real. But what I would say about conservatism,

39:02

there's sort of this dispositional

39:05

conservatism, which is sort

39:08

of the Chesterton's fence where somebody might say, oh, look

39:10

at this fence. It seems to be here for no reason.

39:12

Let's knock it down. And the dispositional conservative

39:16

says, If there's a fence here, let's at

39:18

least figure out why it's here before we knock it down. A little more risk averse,

39:20

a little bit more respectful of traditions

39:22

and traditions. Who do you ask though?

39:26

You know, them. Tucker Tucker curls. Yeah.

39:28

because everyone has a view of why the

39:30

Fed says Ask them, Phil. Just ask

39:34

them. Okay. Not telling me, David. You're not telling me a

39:36

dispositional conservatism that is

39:38

going to kinda tap the brakes when

39:40

somebody says, we need to change a, b, and

39:42

c. You're

39:44

gonna say, Let's -- Yeah. -- slide on. There's an

39:46

ideological conservatism, which

39:48

is really an interesting way of describing a

39:51

a specific idea lot ideology like classical

39:54

liberalism to describe it as

39:56

conservatism as kind of a

39:58

historical accident. to

39:59

be

39:59

honest, because if you go

40:02

over to Europe and you say that, you know, you

40:04

described conservatism, it's not they're not

40:06

necessarily gonna immediately leap to classical

40:08

liberalism. Right. sort of a

40:10

modern conception of what you might call sort

40:12

of the the Reagan Eye

40:14

transformation of the Republican Party,

40:16

which is limited government. Maximum

40:18

individual. Much more focused on individual

40:20

liberty, etcetera markets. Now

40:22

to call

40:24

that conservative is

40:26

sort of that's just the name that we gave to

40:28

classical liberalism -- Okay. -- and

40:31

free market economics. Right. And so

40:33

that's why I say,

40:36

Okay. If somebody asked me what I am and I say, conservative, no that

40:38

word no longer. Right. So ten

40:41

ten years ago, fifteen years ago,

40:43

it was clear that you

40:46

were more in in a Reagan conservative -- Right.

40:48

-- limited government maximum hybridity.

40:50

Are we are we in gulliver's

40:54

travels now, where was it the little puke

40:56

in the space? Who's the giant? I don't

40:57

know. But, like, every two sides are just

41:00

fighting over completely

41:02

arbitrary stuff you

41:02

know, I crack the egg on this side of that side. And now whatever that guy does, I'm

41:04

gonna take the opposite point of view just because that's

41:06

the nature of Well, media these

41:10

days. I mean, that is the consequence of what's called effective polarization.

41:12

In other words, when I

41:14

have an enormous amount of animosity towards

41:16

you -- Mhmm. -- then no

41:19

matter what you say, I'm going to have a strong inclination

41:21

to disagree. Right. Just because

41:23

Phil said it, Right.

41:26

I don't like I don't like Phil's fences. Yeah. So

41:29

that effective polarization creates

41:31

its own set

41:34

of policies. So, you know, one of the the avatars of

41:36

effective polarization right now is Rhonda

41:38

Santos. Mhmm. So he has

41:42

identified enemies Disney,

41:44

woke professors -- Mhmm. -- the Tampa

41:46

Bay. Right? Diversity consultants immigrants.

41:48

He's identified these enemies, and then

41:50

he's gonna use of this is something that

41:52

was at Natcon that was talked about explicitly

41:55

to reward friends and

41:57

punish enemies. Now,

41:58

wow the classical

41:59

liberal says, whoa. Hold

42:02

on. You know, the the

42:04

idea that we're gonna even give the

42:07

state that power To be that punitive on

42:09

the basis of ideology, the classical liberal says

42:12

nope, that

42:14

is not that power should

42:16

be denied the state.

42:18

And then what you when you have

42:20

effective polarization, the tendency

42:22

is then for people on

42:24

opposite sides do want to get more

42:26

state power because if they get more

42:28

state power, they can inflict it on

42:30

their opponents. Right. and a lot

42:32

of the Natcon right is just super

42:34

explicit about that. They I we

42:36

want to reward friends and punish enemies

42:38

because they view that as

42:40

a synonym of

42:40

advancing the good and punishing

42:41

evil. Mhmm. Mhmm. To them, that's the

42:44

same

42:44

deal. And so

42:46

the

42:46

classical liberal sitting there going You

42:49

know what? This is the logic of religious

42:52

war. Mhmm. And classical

42:54

liberalism to

42:56

to paraphrase

42:58

this a guy who used right under the pseudonym, Scott Alexander,

43:00

he was talking about how classical

43:02

liberalism emerged from the words of religion.

43:06

classical liberalism is not some sort of utopia

43:08

government system. It's like an

43:10

alien technology for the prevention

43:12

of civil war. It's how

43:15

really different people live together. Mhmm.

43:18

That's what it is. It is not

43:20

Ethiopian. Mhmm. And then what the

43:22

people on the on the wings then say

43:24

now is, no, here we're

43:26

utopia. You know, here's here's how we're

43:28

gonna really create a just society and it's

43:30

gonna but step one involves

43:32

crushing my enemies.

43:34

Mhmm. Mhmm. Well, sorry,

43:36

that's that's the logic that leads to civil

43:38

strife. That's the logic that leads to And it's

43:40

the rejection of classical. liberalism. Mhmm.

43:43

So Andrew Sullivan is written. He was

43:45

citing some sociologists who talked about

43:47

how every society has

43:50

sort of a constant amount of religious impulse. I

43:52

forget the exact language he used.

43:54

Mhmm. And as America becomes less

43:56

and less institutionally

43:58

religious, that impulse has to go somewhere,

44:00

and he's arguing it's going into our politics

44:02

-- Yes. -- which is your point of this

44:05

is what religious wars look like. Yes. But instead of

44:07

Christianity or protestants and Catholics or whatever,

44:10

it's right and left,

44:12

Republicans and Democrats,

44:14

are we Is it inevitable that this is gonna come

44:16

to increasing violence?

44:18

Over the short term,

44:20

I'm gonna say almost inevitable

44:24

over the long term, I'm more optimistic for this

44:26

reason. When you say long term, you didn't

44:28

mean like on a cosmic level, like

44:31

No. Not like the arc of not

44:34

like Justice Ben's or the arc

44:36

of businesses like Jesus will Whatever

44:38

else we get into. Jesus will

44:40

eventually. Right. clean it up.

44:42

No. So let me put it this

44:44

way. We know and

44:46

and the best social science indicates

44:48

that a majority of Americans really

44:50

don't like the state. Not

44:52

just sort of like the inflation

44:55

or or global instability or whatever.

44:57

They're they don't like the

44:59

way we're at each other. A majority

45:01

of Americans don't. Mhmm. And so And it's

45:03

the other guy's

45:06

fault. Yeah. and they don't. And they're that's across the political spectrum.

45:08

So ninety percent of that

45:10

sniping, that fighting, that fury

45:12

is being driven by about twenty five

45:14

percent of

45:16

America. And so the question that I have is,

45:18

will that twenty five percent of America continue

45:20

to drive the bus?

45:24

Or will the two thirds or plus of those who are

45:26

the quote unexhausted majority, will

45:28

they start to kind of waken

45:30

from the

45:32

slumber or move, you know, that I I think of the exhausted majority.

45:34

Have you seen that Jiff of Homer Simpson

45:36

retreating? Yes. a shrub. shrub.

45:39

That's most Americans when it comes to political arguments

45:42

now. They're just like retreating into the

45:44

shrubbery. But if you do that and

45:46

you stay in the shrubbery,

45:48

you lose It's over -- Right. --

45:50

the the you the two uncles left at the

45:52

dinner party just trashed the place. Yeah. So

45:54

part of the wisdom of the framers

45:56

in the constitution was this they had a

45:58

view of human nature in which we

46:00

are flawed, ambitious,

46:02

on virtuous people. And therefore, we need to

46:04

check some balances -- Yeah. -- to keep one another

46:07

from terrible things. So

46:09

there's

46:09

a role for systemic

46:12

structures to limit how bad

46:14

things get. But when

46:15

I look at way cable news or social

46:17

media, it rewards extremism -- Yeah. For sure.

46:19

-- and then when I look at the way

46:21

we've structured our politics, with

46:24

Jerry Mandarin and the two party system and no

46:26

ranked choice voting in most places, it

46:29

rewards extremism in

46:32

political parties. So all of

46:34

our structures are built

46:36

to

46:36

ferment this

46:38

animosity even though most Americans want

46:40

it. Yeah. So do we need a fundamental structural change if

46:42

we're gonna begin the

46:43

week? If we had

46:45

more state power. we could

46:47

change -- That's right. -- cable news. I mean, this

46:50

was this was George Washington who had

46:52

enormous state power after the revolution and

46:54

his virtue led him to surrender it.

46:56

I mean, I don't know we have that coming our

46:58

way. If somebody is a leader of that magnitude, but

47:00

we can't need it. I

47:02

mean, look, what what's ending up happening

47:04

is that the way the system is working. It's

47:07

creating a narrowing political engagement

47:10

and intensifying it. So

47:12

the way market forces are working is that

47:15

If I don't like the way politics is

47:18

done, then I'm stepping

47:20

away -- Mhmm. -- as opposed to

47:22

diving into a structure or an institution that has

47:25

politics correctly. Now part of that

47:27

is an artifact of the of

47:29

the reality that our two we

47:32

have a two party system that is that has done a very good job

47:34

about the only thing our two party consistent system

47:36

is really, really competent at

47:40

is is eliminating its competition is a duopoly. Right. Yeah.

47:42

So you have a duopoly.

47:44

And when that when

47:46

one or both members of that

47:48

duopoly become deeply

47:50

dysfunctional, well then wear

47:51

the political institutions

47:56

that

47:56

empower an alternative.

47:56

And the answers you look

47:59

around you know, and don't see them. And so for

48:01

example, one of the reasons why we started

48:03

the dispatch was we

48:06

wanted to create an instant institution, a

48:08

new institution that was

48:10

free of a lot of the maladies that

48:12

were inflicting right wing media,

48:14

hot takes, grievance

48:16

culture, all of those things. And so

48:18

we're kind of a a part of, like,

48:20

of trying to create the alternative

48:22

kinds of

48:24

institutions and that's gonna be a big part of how we out

48:26

of this mess because there's been such a capture

48:28

of the political institutions by

48:33

the competing extremes and you

48:35

look around and this is something that we see

48:37

all the time when we're out there

48:39

interacting with folks. We have folks who read

48:41

us from the left, the middle, and the right. And one of the things as they say,

48:43

we don't know what community we

48:46

belong to. We hear that all the time. All

48:48

the time. And

48:50

so there needs to be institutions to

48:53

house the newly homeless --

48:55

Mhmm. -- and that

48:58

magnifies their voice and that magnifies their we

49:00

just stop playing the game

49:02

where you have to declare

49:06

I'm a conservative or I'm a progressive. I'm gonna

49:08

have people tweet at me and

49:10

say, Phil, are you a liberal?

49:13

know, it's like just if it's true, just let us know

49:15

so we can all, you know, weep and gnash

49:17

our teeth and go out. It's like,

49:19

on what issue on what issue? I'm not trying to be

49:21

conservative or liberal. I'm trying to be biblical. Yeah. And it's

49:24

gonna look different and you're trying to force

49:26

it into

49:28

a grid that doesn't work and is uniquely

49:30

American. Well, that's why people

49:32

got so

49:32

mad at Tim Keller

49:33

and have been mad at Tim Keller

49:35

for years now. a

49:38

op ed. I think it was in twenty eighteen in the

49:40

New York Times where he said,

49:42

biblical Christianity doesn't map exactly

49:44

into either party. Right. Right. People

49:48

freaked out. How is that

49:50

not obvious? It's completely

49:52

up. Just to give you a sense of

49:54

how party platforms,

49:56

how contingent they are. I'll I'll give you a

49:58

great example of this. And this isn't one of the

50:00

big hot button issues, but one of the reasons

50:02

why we were supposed to vote for Trump

50:04

in twenty twenty as if the left got in power, they had to admit

50:07

new states to the union and in

50:09

and they would alter the balance of power

50:11

in the Senate. Yes.

50:14

Well, you know, I have a memory longer than a goldfish

50:16

to quote Ted Lassow. And

50:18

so I went and I looked back at

50:20

the twenty sixteen Republican National Convention

50:24

Platform that Donald Trump ran on. And

50:26

it was support of admitting Puerto

50:28

Rico into the union. So

50:32

now it's what Christians have to do is rally against wait a

50:34

minute. These things shift and change --

50:36

Mhmm. -- all of the time, and then there's

50:38

another thing, Phil, that I think

50:40

is if anything's really important really

50:42

When you get partisan, when you become a partisan,

50:44

you start living and acting like

50:46

a lawyer. And by that I mean,

50:48

i mean you're always trying to advance your

50:51

side's point of view. You're minimizing your

50:53

side's flaws. You're maximizing

50:55

the other side. And there's

50:58

a reason why we don't need everyone

51:00

to be lawyers in America. It's

51:02

not a great way to

51:04

live a life holistically. we need

51:07

more people who are jurors. And what does a juror do? A juror

51:09

hears from competing sides

51:11

hopefully without bias. and

51:14

then decides on the basis of some really pretty basic

51:16

principles, and that's when you're talking about

51:20

biblical justice. understanding

51:22

sort of biblical justice and its fullness.

51:24

I mean, one that's very complex. It's

51:26

a lifelong exercise. But that's

51:28

how we should be filtering these things

51:30

rather than sort of saying, okay, I've decided that the Republicans

51:32

or the Christian Party or the Democrats or

51:34

the Christian Party, now I'm their lawyer. and

51:38

we just and and we've just got all unpaid lawyers running

51:41

around, advocating for their clients. Yes. It

51:43

it reminds me Phil knows this. I with

51:45

some friends, I'm taking

51:48

an improv class -- Oh, no. -- which is immensely fun. Last

51:50

night in the class, the the instructor,

51:52

we were doing three person scenes. And

51:56

he said, one of the ways to make a scene very entertaining and lots

51:58

of fun is

51:59

pick some pick one person in the scene

52:01

that no matter what they say, no matter what they

52:03

do, you're gonna have

52:06

nothing but distain. k. To them. And pick another person in

52:08

the scene that no matter what they say and what they do, you

52:10

are going to adore and affirm.

52:12

That's that's all. And it was hysterical, and

52:14

it's so the top and it's

52:16

ridiculous, but that's exactly what our public

52:18

square looks like right now that no matter how

52:20

reasonable, intelligent,

52:22

and thoughtful a view or a may If from

52:24

other side, I have to condemn it and hate it.

52:26

And it it's just madness. It's

52:28

ridiculous. Okay.

52:30

It's reality. I'm gonna play the role

52:32

of Christian Taylor here who's gonna come

52:34

in and say, guys.

52:36

Guys, what is this?

52:36

How does this actually affect my life? And

52:38

what do I need to do differently? because of

52:40

this? Yeah. That's a great question.

52:43

So

52:43

one of the things that I've been urging

52:45

people and I'm actually writing about this right

52:47

now for my newsletter this

52:50

week is that I

52:52

think we need to intentionally

52:54

cultivate communities of people

52:56

that are broadly divergent, ideologically, and

52:58

broadly divert of of

53:00

different backgrounds and different points of view.

53:02

Because a ton of

53:04

what we

53:06

call cancel culture, a ton of animosity

53:08

is actually driven not so much by ideology,

53:10

but in group dynamics. So

53:14

there's this great principle that Cass

53:16

Sunstein articulated twenty three

53:18

years ago called the law of group

53:20

polarization, and it's this. when

53:23

people of like mind gather,

53:25

they become more extreme. Mhmm.

53:28

And it's just a natural operation of human nature.

53:30

So how do you to deal with the law of

53:32

group polarization, don't gather so

53:34

much with people of like mind. And

53:36

now if that's really hard to do because you

53:38

live in a bright red area or a bright blue

53:41

area, seek out the best expression of the opposing

53:43

sides' point of view. Mhmm. Because one of the

53:45

things you're gonna learn quickly is you're gonna learn

53:47

that there's a lot of goodwill people of goodwill

53:49

on the other side. who've thought

53:51

of things that never crossed your mind. Mhmm.

53:54

But here's the way we do it, and I'm much more

53:56

familiar with conservative world than I

53:58

am with deep although I've lived in deep blue

54:00

areas, I've you know, I live in

54:02

in my neighborhood's eighty five percent Republican.

54:04

I grew up in the church. That's, you know,

54:06

my world. Let's say there's a

54:08

new idea that comes around. Let's go for a hot

54:10

button new idea that you never heard of.

54:12

Critical writes theory. What's

54:14

that? You never heard of it. Never heard of it. Never heard of it. Never.

54:16

Delicious. Yeah. That sounds fantastic. So

54:18

what you're gonna do if you're conservative, you're gonna

54:20

go and you're gonna find go to

54:22

your favorite conservative commentator, and

54:24

you're gonna say, what does Ben

54:26

Shapiro think about critical rights theory? And

54:28

then whatever Ben Shapiro thinks That's it. That's

54:30

what you think about. Right. Well, if you hear a new idea, one of the

54:33

things I would urge

54:33

people to do is first,

54:36

read

54:36

about the idea from the idea's

54:38

advocates. then

54:40

read the prop I mean, the opponents,

54:42

but they might change your mind and

54:44

you might not fit in your group

54:48

anymore. And that's the social dynamic by expanding

54:50

the social dynamic and

54:53

expanding your social social sphere,

54:56

you're limiting the power of

54:58

ideological peer pressure. What you're welcoming is

55:00

cognitive dissonance. Yes. And most

55:02

people are allergic to that. But

55:04

aren't you with the dispatch creating a group of

55:06

like minded people who will now become

55:08

more extreme. Well

55:10

and aren't we doing the same thing with the holy post?

55:13

It's it's very hard to put

55:16

this into practice -- No. -- you know,

55:18

because I but one thing that I

55:20

would say about say the dispatch is

55:22

that we're trying to create a

55:24

community of people who are

55:26

inquisitive. Okay? Okay. So

55:28

the goal is to create a

55:30

value orientation

55:32

towards curiosity. I love it. And -- Mhmm. -- and that's the

55:34

kind of and what's when you have a

55:36

community that's value proposition

55:38

is towards curiosity and inquisitiveness,

55:41

what are your welcoming. Mhmm. You're welcoming.

55:44

So one of the things that you'll a lot of people

55:46

have said that this about the dispatch and did

55:48

not intend

55:50

for this podcast to be in a commercial for the dispatch,

55:52

but a lot of people have said we have the

55:54

best comment section that

55:56

they've discovered. because we have you

55:58

have to pay to comment. You have to pay to

56:00

comment. That's one way

56:02

to filter out the

56:04

trays. It's a great practice.

56:06

Yes. It But it's

56:08

left, it's center, and it's

56:10

right. Okay. It doesn't mean that sometimes

56:12

people don't get testy with each other.

56:14

Yeah. But because there is

56:16

no bubble you know, people are always having to have their

56:18

their ideas are always being tested by somebody

56:20

of goodwill on the other side, and it creates

56:22

an ethos.

56:25

I've seen this when I've been in

56:27

I was on the faculty

56:29

at Cornell Law School for a while, and I

56:31

was the only conservative. and

56:34

whatever that means. Yeah. Well, this is

56:36

this is who knows?

56:38

I mean, in two thousand, it meant something

56:40

I thought.

56:42

But anyway, but you could see the group dynamic change

56:44

just by there was somebody else in

56:46

the room. Right? And

56:48

so that's

56:48

and as Christians

56:51

I mean,

56:51

this posture of openness and this

56:54

posture of welcome, that should be

56:56

default for us. That's what the church is

56:58

supposed to be. Wow. Wow.

57:00

Okay. How do we

57:02

do that?

57:03

We'd be curious. He of he'd

57:05

need the value of curiosity. I

57:07

love the value curiosity. That's my favorite without a t shirt.

57:09

Is it a fruit of the spirit? Can we

57:12

add it? Is the fruit of the spirit open to

57:14

amenities? I

57:16

think No. But Two thirds approval of the states -- Yeah.

57:18

-- of the apostles -- Yeah.

57:20

-- when you build a theology around

57:23

like Paul says consider others better than yourself. Yeah. You

57:26

wanna hear their story? Yes. There is there is a

57:28

dignity and respect. hospitality. Exactly.

57:30

Let's call it hospitality again. Is that a

57:32

food dispute? Okay, David.

57:34

It's the virtue. The spirit the

57:36

spirit is not an all inclusive --

57:38

Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yes. Charity, hospitality,

57:41

we can that we can. Yeah.

57:46

Okay. Few few more minutes. I just wanna

57:48

go off the rails here in the side. Completely

57:50

different. You We need a little

57:52

nerd corner. Yes. Let's do it. You didn't

57:54

pass it by night. I you are not supposed to

57:56

be here. You

57:58

are interloper. I'm again. Carpet back. Let's get let's get to it. Now the

57:59

podcast, it started. Yes. Yeah. How much time

58:02

do you have? Rings of

58:04

power. Yes.

58:06

Okay. okay Who

58:08

do you believe the stranger

58:10

stranger is is?

58:12

Okay.

58:13

I don't wanna

58:14

have to hit you. But I will.

58:17

I'm gonna I so look, first thing you have

58:19

to understand about Amazon rings of power

58:21

is, yes, it is departed from

58:23

Canon. Mhmm. Okay? And

58:25

part of that is absolutely necessary because the second age of

58:28

Middle Earth without getting too much into it is

58:30

more than three thousand years long.

58:32

I have not been bothered by the

58:34

departures they've made so far. So far, I'm happy.

58:36

Yes. Yeah. So

58:38

I think and it is mainly

58:42

based on mannerisms, it scanned off.

58:44

I think you are

58:46

wrong.

58:46

And do you not

58:48

think it is Sauron? I

58:50

think it's I think it's just too much

58:52

hair. Do you is it because you you think they're trying

58:54

to fake us out? Like, they're deliberately planting

58:58

saw around like images and ideas because they're gonna surprise us.

59:01

because there's a lot of them. But

59:03

if you so okay.

59:06

Now and I could be all wrong about

59:08

this because I have my own Sauron theory that's different from that.

59:11

Okay. But anyway, so if

59:14

you listen how

59:16

the the stranger talks

59:18

and compare it with some

59:20

of the ways that Gandalf talked

59:23

in the Peter Jackson films. And I'm not saying that

59:25

the Peter Jackson portrayal of Gandalf is canon

59:27

or whatever. But there's a lot

59:30

of similarity

59:32

there. And

59:32

there's also kind of precedent for sort of

59:34

a period of confusion because

59:37

remember when Gandalf the White

59:39

reappears. Totally agree. Yeah. Yeah.

59:42

So my and and we do know

59:44

gosh. And now now your your Twitter's

59:47

gonna blow up because I'm

59:50

gonna show some ignorance. I've I've forgotten exactly when

59:52

Gandalf comes. So it's a Maiar. Third

59:54

Age. Right. Yeah. So it's a Maiar

59:56

comes into the third Age.

59:59

Not a

59:59

lot

59:59

of detail about that. Mhmm. You know, how

1:00:02

would he have come, etcetera? He came on a ship

1:00:04

and he was given the the ring of

1:00:06

fire by seared in the We

1:00:08

are we are about two minutes from putting on costumes and costumes.

1:00:10

Okay. Good. So let's -- Good. -- locate.

1:00:14

Here's my thing. I think you're it makes sense why people would go the

1:00:16

Gandalf route. Mhmm. Sauron is also a Maiar.

1:00:18

Yes, he is. And so it would make sense

1:00:20

that when he reemerges in middle earth

1:00:23

that he also has some kind of an amnesia kind of

1:00:25

death. But the more important thing is in the

1:00:27

second age saw around

1:00:30

fools a lot the elves and the men

1:00:32

into being they they're convinced

1:00:34

he's Anatar, who this lord of gifts -- Yes. -- who

1:00:36

so to be somewhat benevolent is

1:00:39

important at this stage. The part that got

1:00:41

me in the first episode though was when he lands he's in that, first of all,

1:00:43

the crash site looks like the eye of Sauron.

1:00:45

Mhmm. And then the

1:00:48

hear foot girl, whatever her name is, falls into the fire, and it's cool,

1:00:50

which -- Yeah. -- Galagio earlier had

1:00:52

said the fire gives off no heat because of the

1:00:54

evil. So they have already

1:00:56

established that cold fire

1:00:58

is evil. So but

1:01:00

here's my question. Mhmm. Who's

1:01:02

already deceiving Elves and Men?

1:01:05

albert How brand? in

1:01:07

Pneumonore. because if you remember And

1:01:09

he's already bad. Like, he's already killing

1:01:11

people and lying and

1:01:14

manipulating. He's he's

1:01:16

he's almost too, he's like the anti aragorn feels to

1:01:18

me. I wonder if he's either

1:01:19

the witch king or the the king

1:01:21

of the dead. who

1:01:23

will not, you know, the king of the south who doesn't or the

1:01:26

elf that bakes the

1:01:28

cookies. And then the

1:01:30

what on

1:01:32

earth Who invited him? I know. He's this

1:01:34

is just like my improv class for everything you say.

1:01:36

I'm gonna agree with everything you said. I'm just Makes

1:01:39

the cookies? Yeah. Yeah. now.

1:01:41

Anyway -- Okay. -- but well, let let me

1:01:43

let me ask you this. Are you enjoying rings? I

1:01:45

am enjoying it. Yes. And not

1:01:48

only am I enjoying it, I think it is

1:01:50

very faithful to the token

1:01:52

ethos. Mhmm. And also, I

1:01:54

will defend this portrayal of

1:01:56

Galadriel because

1:01:58

this idea

1:01:59

that Galadriel five

1:02:01

thousand years before what we see

1:02:04

in in Lord of the

1:02:06

Rings is gonna be exactly the

1:02:08

same. Right? No.

1:02:08

And in fact,

1:02:09

the Galadriel Lord of the Rings is

1:02:11

very it is very

1:02:12

obvious that she

1:02:13

knows she has prone towards the

1:02:16

temptation to

1:02:18

words that sort of, you know, that the very kind of

1:02:20

aggressive power that she exerts --

1:02:22

Right. -- which makes her giving up the offer of

1:02:24

the ring that much more meaningful Exactly.

1:02:28

Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. We just haven't

1:02:30

heard. Do you know what I read on you now? Do you know what I

1:02:32

read on Twitter? Sure it was true.

1:02:34

Whatever it was. fact that David French

1:02:36

likes the new Lord of the

1:02:38

Rings, shows just how

1:02:40

unmasking you. That's

1:02:42

correct. Yes. That's correct.

1:02:44

Which led someone else to say a

1:02:46

fan of the guy who calls out Christian

1:02:48

men for not being masculine, led another

1:02:50

guy to say, I bet David French is the

1:02:52

kind of man It goes to the

1:02:54

gym twice a month just to do the

1:02:56

elliptical.

1:02:57

Wow. How often do

1:02:59

you go to the gym? And

1:03:00

do you pump iron a real Christian man?

1:03:03

You know, number one,

1:03:04

I rarely go to

1:03:06

the

1:03:08

gym. because that's I do nothing but, like, all I am doing at home is push

1:03:10

ups. Like, I'm just sitting, I don't have time to go

1:03:12

to the jail. Just push ups. When I'm just knocking

1:03:16

out and running -- Oh. -- push ups. You're all about the picks.

1:03:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. That first

1:03:20

of all, I bet this guy, whoever he is on

1:03:22

Twitter -- Yeah. -- did not go

1:03:24

to Iraq. as

1:03:26

a soldier. He was a bodybuilder. He was too busy. He was

1:03:28

too busy in the gym. I just I I don't get

1:03:30

the whole. Well, that was a very clean

1:03:32

way of saying what he said about.

1:03:35

me. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:38

It was it was I saw

1:03:40

that somebody sent that to me and it was like,

1:03:42

What? Okay. Yeah. Cool. Do we wanna wrap it up

1:03:44

or should we talk about Star Trek? No. No. No.

1:03:46

Okay. We're we're wrapping up. We're very

1:03:48

grateful, David, that you took

1:03:51

some time out of visit to Wheaton to

1:03:53

spend with us. Oh, this was great. I loved it. Good

1:03:55

to see you in the flesh. That's great great

1:03:57

to be with you. Yeah. He doesn't even tell me

1:03:59

when you guys cord so that

1:04:01

I can't show up. I try to keep them away. Yeah.

1:04:03

I think you know them. It's now

1:04:06

understandable. I mean, the

1:04:08

very notion that you would

1:04:10

bring the key blur elves into this

1:04:12

discussion. I what

1:04:14

was that the

1:04:16

first age? Which age was the age of the cookie elves? Although they do make

1:04:18

limos, Brad, you're testing my

1:04:20

commitment to the fruit of

1:04:22

the spirit. Yeah.

1:04:24

We best leave. Okay. We

1:04:26

usually wrap these up. I don't I

1:04:28

don't Thank you everyone for listening. Please support us

1:04:30

on Patreon. Go to holy posts dot com

1:04:32

and click support us and definitely check out

1:04:35

the the dispatch. The dispatch. Right. Where

1:04:37

where you can pay to leave nasty comments. There

1:04:39

is a toll tax -- Yes. -- for

1:04:41

the dispatch. and it or may not be a

1:04:43

conservative publication. Nobody knows

1:04:46

anything anymore, but they

1:04:48

are curious. but it's a curious Not

1:04:50

in that way though. What a curious publication.

1:04:52

You've started David French? Yes.

1:04:54

And I'll take that in not the

1:04:56

way you I'll take that literally but

1:04:58

not tonally. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. See

1:05:01

you everyone. Bye. French Friday is

1:05:03

a production of the Holy Post.

1:05:06

featuring David French and me, Sky Jutani,

1:05:08

production by Carla Haskins,

1:05:10

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1:05:12

Betcher, editing by Jason Rug,

1:05:15

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