Ep 357 ｜ Taking Cara Babies Gets Canceled & Christian Nationalism Becomes a Scapegoat
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Summary
In this episode of Relatable Monday, I talk about cancel culture, a baby sleep trainer, Christian nationalism, and the Biden Inauguration. I also talk a little bit about Christian nationalism and what it really is.
Transcript
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We are talking about cancel culture as it relates to taking care of babies, a baby sleep
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And then we are also going to talk about if we have time, it depends on how long my cancel
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We're going to talk about Christian nationalism and the inauguration of President Biden that
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happened last week and what those two things have to do with one another, what Christian
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We've talked about that before, but we're hopefully going to get a little bit more in
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I know I've probably said that every week for the past few weeks, all of 2021 so far,
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but we're going to talk about Biden's executive orders.
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He has signed several of them now and what they actually mean.
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And specifically tomorrow, we're going to talk about the executive order that has to
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do with sex and gender and what that means for women's sports in particular.
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And I will be talking to a scientist who has written about this subject extensively.
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Specifically, we're going to be talking about how the Biden-Harris administration has been
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dealing with COVID, some of the false rhetoric that they've already put out, the false promises
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that were made during the campaign that are not going to be able to apparently be fulfilled
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And so we've got a lot, a lot, a lot to talk about this week.
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And as always, feel free to send me your suggestions if there's really something that you want explained
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or someone that you want me to talk to about a certain subject, feel free to send me a message
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Okay, let's first talk about cancel culture and taking care of babies.
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So if you're not in the kind of mom sphere on social media, which I would say I kind of am.
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My husband doesn't have an Instagram, but whenever he looks at my Instagram feed, he always says
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that I have the most boring Instagram feed ever because I follow very few people.
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A lot of the people that I follow are political or cultural commentators.
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And I'm not following like any, you know, gossip sites.
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I'm not following a whole lot of like fashion bloggers or anyone that has kind of like a lot
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But I do follow a few influencers and I follow taking care of babies.
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Uh, I think that she is such a joyful and a wonderful and a helpful resource for young
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moms, not just when it comes to, um, sleep training your babies.
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If that's something that you're doing and if you're not a mom yet and you didn't know
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that was a thing, it is a thing trying to get your baby to sleep through the night.
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Uh, she's also just an encouragement for a lot of moms who feel worn out or they feel
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She is always a bright light on Instagram and that just can't be said for a whole lot of people.
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Uh, she doesn't comment on what's going on in society.
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She didn't have anything to say about the election.
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She knows what the point of her business is and what she is there to do and why she is
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So she sells these programs, um, that you buy and then you watch the videos online.
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They come with a bunch of resources and you sleep train your baby.
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There's a lot of different people who do this, but she has gotten really, really popular over
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And she is like the sleep trainer to the stars.
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She has a lot of celebrities, a lot of influencers that trust her to, um, help them sleep train their
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Well, she became the center of controversy and scandal last week when, um, it was uncovered
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Mommy Instagram erupted in anger and confusion.
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A bunch of influencers said, Oh my gosh, I got to take time to process this.
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As if Kara had like killed someone, people were acting like this was an affront to decency.
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Like it was something that happened to them personally.
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Um, Instagram influencer, Jamie Grayson, he calls himself a baby product expert.
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I don't know if he has children himself, but he calls himself a baby product expert and
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he self, he self describes as a very liberal homosexual.
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That's what he said in one of his Instagram captions when he was talking about, um, the horrid
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nature of taking care of babies of Kara Dumoplin, um, donating to the Trump campaign.
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So he posted, um, the FEC records that are public on his Instagram showing that Kara had
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donated to the Trump campaign between 2016 and 2019.
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There were dozens of other accounts doing the same thing, baby feeding accounts, baby
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Some of them with hundreds of thousands of followers, um, posting about these donations,
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expressing their disgust and their confusion, their sadness and anger, big little feelings,
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Uh, the, the first account, big little feelings said that they were going to unfollow feeding
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littles just said that they had to process this because Kara is their friend.
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And so this is very difficult for them, but they still love their friends.
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Uh, so lots of accounts and thousands of Instagrammers and even Twitter users were calling
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her a racist, calling her a white supremacy, a white supremacist just because not because of
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anything she said, not because of anything she's done, not because of any account that
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anyone gave saying, Oh yeah, Kara was, you know, racist or rude to me.
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Actually, a lot of the people that were calling her out, they, um, they prefaced their call
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out and they prefaced their announcement of unfollowing her or removing their support from
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her by saying, Oh, Kara has been really nice to me.
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She helps me with my baby or she was even a, a friend of mine.
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But now I feel like I've been duped and I can no longer support her.
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Like, even if you are an account, like one of these accounts who posted, like Kara is
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We believe that black lives matter, but you know, we might not unfollow her because she's
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You're jumping into the mob, even if you caveat it and say, but I, you know, I still love my
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No, you're still adding to the noise and adding to the pressure and adding to the burden of,
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So some disgruntled person posted all of her proprietary content on Reddit for free.
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That person probably has a lawsuit on their hands.
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Now, what is worrying, um, is that, yeah, that's illegal to do.
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You can't take someone's copyrighted content and then post it for free without legal ramifications.
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But what's worrying is, is Reddit, and I don't know, maybe it's already been taken down, but
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it is Reddit or, uh, is Google, uh, going to treat Kara differently?
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Are they not going to respect the, um, proprietary nature of her, uh, copyrighted, uh, content
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because of her politics and because of the reasons that it was posted?
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I mean, you know, we talked about in big tech, if big tech is discriminating against people
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because of their politics, if they're treating people differently because of their politics,
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not on evenly and fairly applied rules that they have, um, then you aren't living in a
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Even if the government still honors the first amendment, if other institutions, which have
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arguably just as much power or a competitive level of power to the government are restricting
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you or discriminating against you, you don't really totally live in a free society.
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So that is another concern that we have on top of all of this.
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Um, Kara made a statement on her stories after the craziness had settled and said, yeah, this
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I donated to president Trump, love me or hate me.
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No matter your beliefs, no matter your political party, no matter your background, whatever,
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And we'll get to more of that response, um, in just a second.
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Uh, this is, uh, this is, I just talked about this a lot on Instagram.
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And so those of you who follow me and look at my stories are going to, um, you're going
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to have heard this before I'm going to repeat a lot of what I said on my story.
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You know, that I was getting very riled up about this.
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I got a ton of messages from you guys because a lot of the, the mommy pages that you follow
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And all you were seeing was this kind of self-righteous cancellation.
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And there were very few people just sticking up for her and saying, this is ridiculous.
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Now there were some, there were even liberal influencers, a liberal influencer that I saw with
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lots and lots of followers who basically said, and I just forget her name now, but she basically
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said, look, I'm not going to, I'm not going to cancel her.
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Some of my favorite people are Republicans, you know, just because she donated to the Trump
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campaign doesn't mean I'm going to throw her under the bus.
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Um, a lot of people are saying, I saw some accounts saying this is not cancel culture.
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Well, we talked about that exact offense last week, and I will link to, uh, the episode
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that we talked about that in, uh, in the description of this podcast, we go into this phrase, hold
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Uh, the phrase hold accountable, uh, it denotes having some kind of authority, uh, over someone.
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You have to have some kind of authority to hold someone to account.
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The phrase denotes a hierarchy, a power structure, the authority to punish someone, uh, random
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people on the internet do not have any authority or obligation to hold a stranger, quote, accountable
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A publicly announcing your denunciation of a person because of their vote, the same vote
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that, by the way, 75 million Americans cast calling them a racist because of it, or refusing
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to defend that person against allegations of racism, especially if you are that person's
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friend, encouraging other people to unfollow them is not accountability.
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That's what bullies say to make themselves feel better about taking part in a public shaming
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that's meant to ruin someone's life and livelihood.
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Uh, posting someone's content for free that they charge money for to support themselves and
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their family does not make you some anti-racist hero.
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It makes you all of the things that you claim to hate.
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It reveals something miserable and very grotesque and very troubling and disturbing about your
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Encouraging the storming of someone's Yelp page, uh, or Google reviews with negative reviews
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because you don't like their politics or you don't like their religious beliefs, uh, targeting
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people's advertisers because you don't like their views, purposely seeking out, uh, a conservative
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Christian florist, for example, to service your gay wedding.
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So you can sue them when they say, no, none of this makes anyone a hero.
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And that example of the florist is not just a random example.
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This is exactly the kind of behavior that makes a country ripe for totalitarianism, whether
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it be fascism or communism, as we've talked about before, those two things are not on opposite
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Uh, the political ideological spectrum is a circle.
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Communism and fascism are two, uh, are two kinds of totalitarianism that only differ in pretense,
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whether, uh, or whereas, uh, fascism, the only pretense that they have, or maybe they don't
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have a pretense at all, but fascists just want power.
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Communists say that they are taking power and centralizing power in the name of, you know,
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There's very little daylight practically in the end result between communism and fascism.
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They're just two parts or two kinds of totalitarianism.
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Uh, the deadliest revolution of the past 100 years was the Chinese communist revolution
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under Mao, which was responsible for the murder of about 80 million Chinese people.
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And it wasn't just a political or economic revolution that killed landowners, landlords,
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political dissidents, Christians, other citizens in the name of communism.
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So when, if anyone tells, you know, that tyranny is not coming down the pipeline, totalitarianism
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isn't coming down the pipeline because, uh, we have the constitution and the government
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You don't understand that totalitarianism also happens on the cultural level.
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It happens in the private sector level as well.
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The, the communist revolution in China was a cultural revolution that set itself against,
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uh, old tradition, specifically what we're referred to as the four olds.
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So old ideas, old cult culture, old habits, and old customs, uh, the culture was changed
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by changing public opinion through terror, through punishment, and through shame.
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They had what was called a struggle sessions where they would take a person who was accused
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of being an anti-communist or holding on to old ideas or wrong ideas, what George Orwell
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would call in 1984 wrong think, uh, place them in public and verbally and physically abuse
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them until the person confessed the crimes and repented.
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And this wasn't just to punish the accused, but also to shape public opinion, to change
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This happened in the deadliest revolution of the past 100 years, the Chinese communist
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And one of the ways that people died was through this kind of struggle session that again happened
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on the cultural level, on the interpersonal level.
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This wasn't the government enforcing these things in all of these cases.
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These were people trying to change public opinion through public shame.
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Totalitarianism means literally nothing against the state or nothing outside of the state,
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Totalitarianism starts with private citizens, companies, industries, schools, institutions,
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refusing to allow people to hold opinions outside of mainstream thought without punishment.
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Leftism right now, it hasn't always been this way, but right now, and over the past several
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years has come to dominate our social and cultural dialogue.
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Hollywood, big tech, public education, mainstream media are all increasingly dominated by leftism.
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That is why people who hold to, some people, obviously not all at all, but some people who hold
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to leftism feel empowered to publicly shame and punish those they disagree with.
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That's why they are able to convince themselves that this is okay, because the people who disagree
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with them are on, quote, the wrong side of history.
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They are able to delude themselves into thinking that others vote differently, not just because
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they see things differently, but because they're fundamentally evil.
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People who engage in cancel culture, digging up old tweets, getting people fired for their
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political or religious views, trying to shut down people's businesses and ruining their
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They fancy themselves like the allied forces storming the beaches of Normandy to defeat Nazis,
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when really they're just nothing more than glorified internet trolls.
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And really, if you thought, if you saw yourself as someone who is defeating Nazis through what
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you're doing, then you would be patting yourself on the back too.
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You would be, you would be going at any person who disagreed with you.
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If you believe that those on the other side of the aisle were fundamentally evil and similar
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to Nazis, of course you would have a sense of self-righteousness, but it's really embarrassing
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to think about these delusions of grandeur and how they are blinded to what they actually
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are, which is, like I said, just glorified internet trolls with a totally unearned sense
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Whether it's people doing this on the right or the left, using all of our influence and
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our social capital to cancel one another just because we disagree with each other.
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Is this the unity that we've been hearing so much about?
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Is this the decency and the normalcy that we were told that we would get if we voted
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Or was it really just conformity that people were after all along?
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Remember, if you're a leftist listening to this, God bless you, because I know that you
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disagree with probably everything that I say, but I appreciate you being here.
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I also listen to podcasts and shows from the other side of the aisle, and I know it can
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And I know you might be yelling at your stereo sometimes when I speak, but I really do appreciate
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And if you're thinking, no, this is not cancel culture, this is just holding someone accountable,
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or maybe you're thinking, yeah, but the rights views really are damaging.
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It's just making sure that racist, fascist don't have a platform, whatever it is that you're
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To try to convince yourself that you're not the one on the bad side, that you're not the
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Understand that I, as a conservative, think that you, as a leftist, are just as immorally,
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And I'm not saying you are those things, but your ideas, I believe, are immoral, dangerous,
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and harmful just as much as you think that my ideas are.
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If your answer, again, is to all of this, well, your views are actually dangerous, though.
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Look, you support, as a true leftist, unrestricted, taxpayer-funded access to killing babies in
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Your views cost over a million little lives every year.
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And I manage to follow all kinds of people who openly hold these views without calling
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I am just as passionate about the wrongness of your views as you are of mine, and you
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don't see me trying to ruin your life or anyone's life who just doesn't agree with me.
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If your worldview justifies the cancellation of people who disagree with you because you
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have convinced yourself that everyone who does so is fundamentally evil, you are on the
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Whether you're on the left or right side of the political aisle, you have a bad tree that's
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bearing bad fruit, and you need to get rid of it.
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Now, I do have some caveats to all of this because I get a lot of questions.
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Can we not take our money to a place that aligns with our values?
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And I'm going to explain some caveats, at least in my opinion, to all of this.
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So I do think there are some caveats, some nuance, if you will, in this conversation.
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So I do think that you should vote with your dollar in the sense that I think it's completely
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fair game to support or not support a business based on their values.
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If you are someone who thinks, you know what, I can't take baby sleep training classes from
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someone who voted for Donald Trump or donated to Donald Trump, I think that's fine.
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I will say that it's a lot easier for liberals to do this and liberals do this a lot more
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than conservatives do because it's harder for conservatives to do this.
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I mean, we follow bloggers, influencers, authors, go to salon stores, use websites, watch shows
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run by people that we know hate our values who show us that they hate our values and, you know,
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But either way, if you're a liberal or a conservative, I do think it's fair game to not support someone's
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But in my opinion, this turns into cancel culture.
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When you start orchestrating and organizing mafia-like behavior against this person or company,
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so doxing, intimidation, threats, just hatefulness in messages, storming their review pages, harassment,
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trying to get their business closed down, targeting their advertisers, targeting their website hosts,
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or anything that they need to do to do their business, that's wrong.
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Romans 16, 19 prohibits Christians from acts of vengeance.
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Remember, it is not within your or my jurisdiction to, quote,
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hold accountable random people on the internet whose views we don't like.
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I think we can call them out, even if we want to, obviously, in a respectful way.
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But we shouldn't try to harass or ruin people's lives who just think differently than we do.
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I do think that awareness campaigns and even boycotts can be called for
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when there is actual illegality or immorality going on.
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And I know, immorality, that's a subjective term to a lot of people.
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Some people might say, well, it's absolutely immoral to donate to the Trump campaign.
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This is the most egregious, immoral thing that you can possibly do.
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But I think that to be fair and to make sure that we don't go scorched earth both sides
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when it comes to trying to destroy each other, that we, based on our political disagreements,
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we need to have a very narrow view of what that means and what actually justifies any kind
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So I'm not talking about canceling someone for how they vote or having an unpopular religious
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People boycotting Netflix, though, for streaming Cuties and using a disturbing advertisement
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People refusing to buy from Nike because of their use of Chinese slave labor or trying to
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buy less from China because of their use of slave labor.
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People trying to take down Pornhub for allowing and monetizing non-consensual content and child
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pornography, Harvey or boycotting Harvey Weinstein movies.
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We have to be able to differentiate between taking our support and even encouraging the
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removal of support from institutions like this, companies like this, and seeking to destroy
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someone's life just because they say something or vote in a way or donate in a way that you
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We have to be able to have discernment to distinguish between those two things.
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I also think that it's important to distinguish between, and this is obvious, but we just need
00:24:04.960
to say there's a difference between boycotting Netflix, a huge company, and people encouraging
00:24:12.500
everyone to unfollow a small business owner because they believe in the Bible and they believe
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in biblical marriage or because someone voted for Trump along with 75 million of their fellow
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Like, you know you're not going to bankrupt Netflix by deleting your account.
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There's not going to be, you know, a ton of lives ruined because you did that, but you
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may very well forever ruin the life of a small business owner that you bully just because they
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And remember, for Christians, it's not just the what and the how of removing our support
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We do nothing as Christians, according to God's word, out of bitterness or selfish ambition,
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We put away all bitterness and wrath and slander and anger and malice, as Ephesians 4.31 says.
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We seek truthful, direct, proportionate justice.
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That's a biblical definition of justice where appropriate.
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She didn't add any caveats or loopholes or try to pretend that her views on Trump have
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changed and that she regrets donating to his campaign.
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So I think she did a really, really great job at handling this.
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And then she moved on to what she does, to what she focuses on by saying, look, no matter
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who you are, no matter who you voted for, no matter who your background is, I'm going
00:26:00.800
So here are four lessons that I think that we need to learn from all of this and that
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we can take to heart as we move forward in this crazy cancel culture culture in which
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But unless there's criminality at work or true evil on display, as we already explained,
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we don't engage in the orchestration of taking down someone's business or reputation.
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And even then, we are called not to slander, not to gossip, not to let our motivation be
00:26:39.280
So we do not, under any circumstance, join in on the cancellation of someone for having
00:26:46.180
We're probably all guilty of this in one way or another, whether we realized it in the
00:26:52.100
And so we just have to learn from this and move forward in a better direction.
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Number two, if you see someone being unjustly canceled or bullied, stand up for them.
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This is part of treating people how you want to be treated.
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Would you want people to stand up for you if you're being bullied?
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Now, this doesn't mean in every single case where you see a conservative being criticized
00:27:15.820
or someone with unpopular views being criticized that you always have to say something.
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You're not responsible to do that every single time.
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But if you support someone or you follow someone or you see a story going around that
00:27:29.900
you think explains some kind of unjust cancellation or bullying or harassment, then stand up and
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You would want people to stand up for you if you were being targeted and bullied for your
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You would want someone to speak on your behalf.
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I would want someone to say, look, I'm going to defend what I know about her.
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I'm not going to let her be canceled for either an unfair characterization, slander, gossip,
00:27:59.880
or just because she's a conservative or a Christian or whatever.
00:28:09.940
You would feel more confident and assured knowing that there is an army of encouragement and support
00:28:15.380
So we need to stand up for people when they are canceled unjustly, send them a private
00:28:19.980
message of support, post in their defense, take the heat for doing it, be ready for that,
00:28:28.540
The time has come and gone for us to just be in CYA mode.
00:28:32.740
And if you don't know what that is, I'm not going to say the acronym because you probably
00:28:37.580
But the time has come and gone for us to just be self-interested when it comes to this kind
00:28:42.900
of stuff and self-protecting when it comes to this.
00:28:47.580
If someone comes after a Christian or conservative for their views or anyone of any belief just
00:28:53.600
for having an opinion or supporting a certain politician, we got to stand up in solidarity
00:28:58.520
of either our beliefs or just in defense of freedom of speech and thought and be able to share some of
00:29:07.820
Number three, stop being ashamed of your views.
00:29:12.080
If you are a conservative, remember, you are not the radical.
00:29:16.900
It is not radical to believe in free speech, freedom of religion, smaller government, deregulation,
00:29:22.900
lower taxes, strong borders, the right to self-defense, capitalism, the scientific definition of male
00:29:29.000
and female, school choice, the protection of unborn babies.
00:29:33.940
There's not a single one of those views that is radical.
00:29:36.640
Some of these ideas just fell out of vogue like five minutes ago.
00:29:40.340
It is radical to believe in policing speech and religious belief, in unencumbered bureaucratic
00:29:45.800
power, in centralized bureaucratic power, and the inability to defend yourself and your
00:29:51.780
family and the freedom to kill babies in the womb, socialism, 67 genders.
00:29:58.340
They are impractical beliefs, and the people who hold to them want you to think that you
00:30:05.080
It is not even radical for you to believe what cultures around the world for millennia
00:30:10.900
have believed, that families are made up of a mom and a dad and kids.
00:30:15.720
It was literally just a few years ago that people decided that the natural nuclear family
00:30:22.140
You are not crazy or radical for believing what humans have believed for millennia, and more
00:30:26.580
importantly, what God says he created with purpose and care, just because Twitter trolls
00:30:34.200
Nothing within the belief system that I just described is in any way shameful.
00:30:38.500
They may be arguable, and they may be to a lot of people up for debate, and that's great.
00:30:43.320
I am willing and ready and happy to welcome debate on any of these things.
00:30:49.320
But they are not ideas that you should feel like you can't safely express or that you
00:30:57.560
Because remember, for every whisper, for every totally, perfectly legitimate opinion that
00:31:03.860
you muffle or don't say for fear of being canceled, you let the totalitarians win every
00:31:09.120
time that we are too scared to stand up for someone whose character we know is arguable or
00:31:14.180
who is being slandered because of their views or who is being canceled because of their values,
00:31:19.180
every time that we stay silent because we don't want to catch the heat, because we want
00:31:24.040
to protect ourselves, we let the totalitarians win.
00:31:27.340
We might feel like we are protecting ourselves from the harm of battle, but we're still going
00:31:41.160
State them plainly, confidently, reasonably, logically, factually, and as kindly and as
00:31:49.120
Number four, last tip in all of this, do not apologize.
00:31:54.300
If the mob is mad at you for saying something or doing something that you do not regret and
00:32:06.680
Your options in this particular case are to double down or ignore.
00:32:11.740
Now, if there was something that you legitimately did wrong, there are things or things that
00:32:17.320
I've said that were misconstrued or that I should have said better, I've apologized for
00:32:24.000
If that's the case with you, then sure, you apologize.
00:32:27.080
If it's something that you truly regret, then sure, you apologize.
00:32:31.300
If something actually does need to be explained, then by all means, you can show humility and
00:32:37.140
But realize and put in your mind that your contriteness that you may be showing is motivated
00:32:42.400
by the Holy Spirit and is for God, not because you're scared of the pitchforks of the mob.
00:32:51.120
So I know I should have five tips to try to make this even, but I don't.
00:32:58.240
I think that we can also, we can take the example of Kara and how she handled the whole
00:33:08.680
We can look at some of the bullies and some of the people who claim to be her friends coming
00:33:13.280
after her and we can see what we shouldn't do if we say we're someone's friend or what
00:33:17.220
we shouldn't do just as human beings, but instead, we can handle all things with as
00:33:26.080
much grace as possible, even while we disagree.
00:33:36.480
Going scorched earth and trying to ruin the lives and the livelihoods of people who vote
00:33:41.280
differently than you, who have different ideas than you, guys, it's not sustainable.
00:33:46.140
Remember what happened in the 20th century in China and, I mean, what's still happening
00:33:51.080
in a lot of ways, but totalitarianism, it doesn't spare anyone.
00:33:57.880
Even if you are on the side of the cancelers right now, you will not be spared when the
00:34:04.100
totalitarian state that you are setting up culturally and personally actually takes root.
00:34:10.960
You won't like the world that you are creating by canceling people because they disagree with
00:34:16.320
Now we're going to talk as quickly as I can about Christian nationalism, the inauguration.
00:34:27.560
So we've been talking about Christian nationalism.
00:34:30.260
We talked about it a couple of weeks ago because Beth Moore did a Twitter thread talking about
00:34:34.780
how Christian nationalism is the biggest threat to evangelicalism.
00:34:37.920
And I believe I asked her on Twitter what she means by Christian nationalism, did not get
00:34:43.780
I have asked her a few times to define several terms, and I haven't gotten a response.
00:34:53.680
But I do think it's important in these kinds of conversations, whether we're talking about
00:34:57.400
critical race theory and accusations of critical race theory and Marxism, or whether we're talking
00:35:01.720
about Christian nationalism and accusations of being a Christian nationalist, everyone needs
00:35:06.360
to be on the same page for what these terms mean, or at least the people leveling the accusations
00:35:10.780
and complaints need to be very precise about their language.
00:35:14.400
They need to define their terms and give examples of this.
00:35:18.680
So it's not just Beth Moore, it's also the secular world and secular media talking about the dangers
00:35:26.020
of Christian nationalism, especially as it relates to Trump and specifically as it related to the
00:35:34.300
Lecrae, someone sent me this, said on his Instagram story that he is glad about racism and
00:35:40.640
quote, Christian nationalism being held accountable, that phrase again.
00:35:48.340
Now, a lot of people on the left would say that critical race theory and Marxism, that
00:35:53.100
those are buzzwords and buzz phrases on the right.
00:35:56.540
But as I've said, and as I've done so many times on this podcast, I think the people who
00:36:01.980
talk about critical race theory and the problems with critical race theory have done a really,
00:36:07.440
really good job, a painstakingly good job in defining exactly what critical race theory
00:36:14.760
is, exactly what Marxism looks like, exactly what the dangers of Marxist social justice is,
00:36:23.520
I think they've done a really, really good job of saying what exactly that looks like,
00:36:28.480
what the examples are, why it's incongruent with biblical Christianity.
00:36:31.960
I cannot say that about a lot of the people who are leveling accusations of Christian nationalism.
00:36:38.240
So it's up to me and you to figure out what is actually meant when people like Beth Moore
00:36:43.480
or Lecrae or Christianity Today talk about Christian nationalism and what it actually looks
00:36:50.620
And so at the Capitol riot a couple weeks ago, there was Christian imagery.
00:36:57.800
And you had a lot of evangelicals saying, oh my gosh, this is so awful that they're using
00:37:05.260
And I agree, I don't want people using Christian symbolism.
00:37:10.260
I don't want people using the cross or a depiction of Jesus or the ichthys or whatever it is or
00:37:15.600
the Bible for the justification of any kind of wickedness.
00:37:20.040
But by the way, like if you go to a pride parade, people are also holding posters with either
00:37:29.460
the depiction of Jesus with a rainbow flag or using Bible verses to justify or the name of God or the name of
00:37:40.820
So this is not something at all that is exclusive to people on the right.
00:37:48.260
And I think that as Christians, we need to be really consistent.
00:37:51.280
We need to say, okay, we should not be using and abusing the word of God or Christianity or Christian
00:37:56.800
symbolism in order to decontextualize it, to try to misapply it to our political or social
00:38:10.420
However, it seems that when the right does it, there is far more of an uproar, not just within
00:38:17.000
evangelicalism, but also within the mainstream media.
00:38:19.500
The New York Times wrote an article, how white evangelical Christians fused with Trump
00:38:25.560
Always got to get the race descriptor in there.
00:38:28.020
The New York Times reporters apparently allegedly spoke with many people at the riots, many of
00:38:33.300
whom were self-professing people of faith who also believed the election results were fraudulent.
00:38:37.480
And other reporting, like one mother of 15, highlighting her fear that Biden would ultimately make the
00:38:42.840
Bible hate speech based off of posts on Facebook and Twitter, which were all, quote, false.
00:38:51.040
I love when journalists insert themselves into the story and become the arbiters of truth and
00:38:58.180
The New York Times says this, this potent mix of grievance and religious fervor has turbocharged
00:39:02.800
the support of a wide swath of Trump loyalists, many of whom describe themselves as participants
00:39:08.040
in a kind of holy war, according to interviews.
00:39:11.800
So according to this definition, and they're not even saying necessarily Christian nationalism,
00:39:18.320
and this is what we talked about a couple weeks ago.
00:39:21.160
People who call themselves Christians, who see America as the city on the hill, who see
00:39:27.740
America as God's chosen country, who basically read the prophecies.
00:39:33.900
They tend to be Q followers, although maybe they're not all Q followers.
00:39:37.960
But they believe that the prophecies of the Old Testament are actually about America, that
00:39:44.560
those are the things that are happening right now, and that Trump is some kind of prophet
00:39:50.240
chosen by God to try to prevent bad things from happening to America.
00:39:55.940
And so they really do conflate the American experience with God's eternal plan of redemption.
00:40:04.500
They really conflate biblical prophecies with what's going on today.
00:40:14.900
It's a very myopic view, really, of history just in the past 400 years.
00:40:20.720
It's a very narrow view of what's going on in the world right now.
00:40:24.200
And this is something that I have warned you guys against.
00:40:26.460
Not making America the center of prophecy or the center of God's plan.
00:40:36.600
Like we are a wonderful nation that has been, I think, specially blessed by God graciously
00:40:50.960
And his eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch, no matter what happens
00:40:57.920
That doesn't mean that he doesn't care about what's going on in the United States.
00:41:01.180
But for us to think that the end times are dependent on the trials that we're facing here
00:41:05.700
are dependent even more superficially on who is president and who is not or what's going
00:41:10.600
on behind the political scenes in America, that's wrong.
00:41:13.760
The Bible does not give us any support for that kind of thinking.
00:41:16.940
And so I agree with the New York Times and other critics that say people who are trying
00:41:22.100
to say that America is God's chosen country and that the biblical prophecies are pointing
00:41:26.980
to America's current tribulation or the onset of tribulation for American Christians.
00:41:44.900
It's led people into a kind of idolatry and paranoia that is damaging people's hearts
00:41:51.160
and minds and their families and relationships and how they view the world.
00:41:58.480
They are looking to Q or they're looking to Trump or they're looking to internet forums
00:42:03.140
to try to tell them what's really going on when really God is just as much in control
00:42:12.240
God's plan is dependent on what happens in America.
00:42:14.900
Again, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter what happens here, but you know that there
00:42:18.380
are Christians throughout the world who have been dealing with tribulation-like suffering
00:42:25.520
It has nothing to do with what's happening in America.
00:42:27.700
You know that there are amazing, miraculous, huge things going on in the church in Lebanon,
00:42:35.380
for example, or another church in the Middle East or in Asia, wherever.
00:42:41.520
America is not the center of the biblical story.
00:42:44.160
That is, I think, what people who, whether they know it or not, hold to Christian nationalism.
00:42:51.180
But what progressive Christians need to understand is that progressive Christianity often makes
00:42:56.260
the very same theological mistakes, the very same biblical interpretation mistakes as
00:43:03.740
So Christian nationalists basically think that bringing God's kingdom here on earth is something
00:43:09.460
that they can do by voting for the right people and making sure that Trump's in power and
00:43:13.940
making sure that the right things happen and that we are able to create basically some kind
00:43:22.020
of Christian nation and some kind of theocracy here on earth, even though there is no biblical
00:43:28.280
precedent whatsoever, Old or New Testament, for doing that.
00:43:31.820
I think Christian nationalists kind of think that way, but progressive Christians also think
00:43:37.100
Like, they also think that manifesting God's kingdom here on earth means that you are voting
00:43:43.760
for the right social justice policies and the right social justice politicians to bring some
00:43:48.700
kind of socialist utopia here on earth in which everyone is equal.
00:43:54.360
And we are in this perfect collectivist heaven-like place where there is no oppression and there's
00:44:05.360
Christian progressives who are constantly leveling complaints against Christian nationalists have
00:44:12.800
Their visions of the future are just different.
00:44:16.140
And so as Christians who seek to have a biblical worldview, we need to be able to stand in the
00:44:21.780
middle, evenly criticize both and say both are wrong, both are bad biblical interpretations,
00:44:29.780
Both of them, both ideas, both wrong interpretations of biblical prophecy and the biblical text and
00:44:36.220
our mandate as Christians center our experience and the American experience in their eschatology,
00:44:44.580
in their view of God's eternal plan of redemption, in their biblical interpretation.
00:44:49.220
And both are guilty of idolatry, quite frankly, in different ways.
00:44:54.480
And so that's why it's very difficult for me to hear people like in Christianity,
00:45:00.340
the people who write for, for example, Christianity Today, like Tish Harrison Warren,
00:45:06.000
talk about the dangers of Christian nationalism when, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't hear
00:45:12.680
the same kind of criticism of the idolatry of progressive Christianity, which basically has
00:45:19.400
the same vision, but with a different manifestation of the end goal.
00:45:30.660
The article goes on to say, and this is a different article in which that quote was,
00:45:48.760
Christian nationalism is a political ideology about American identity.
00:45:52.000
It is a set of policy prescriptions for what the nationalists believe the American government
00:46:01.160
It idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life.
00:46:07.900
The reason I have a problem with this definition is because I think it is purposely trying to scare
00:46:13.920
conservative Christians away from having influence in the spheres in which God has placed you.
00:46:19.580
And it also refuses to criticize how progressive Christianity seeks to influence all the spheres
00:46:28.500
So just saying that Christian nationalism is trying to fuse what goes on in society or what goes on
00:46:35.560
in civic life with Christianity, that's way too broad.
00:46:39.480
Every person of every belief system tries to influence civic life with their belief system.
00:46:50.440
And everyone believes that their belief system is right and it's best.
00:47:01.400
You try to influence your workplace with the worldview that you hold.
00:47:08.640
And we should debate and allow the best ideas to win.
00:47:12.100
That's what it means to live in a pluralistic society.
00:47:14.200
Not enforcing secularism, which is not a neutral worldview on all of our curriculum and all
00:47:27.060
But in a pluralistic society, we have people with a lot of different worldviews, and we
00:47:32.380
have to debate which worldview is best, which laws are best, which values are best, which
00:47:39.140
That's what it means to live in a pluralistic society.
00:47:41.840
It doesn't mean trying to remove all traces of Christianity from public life.
00:47:47.120
And I'm afraid that this accusation of Christian nationalism is simply trying to do that.
00:47:54.240
The problem with removing any idea of the Bible or any idea of God from our public life
00:47:59.880
is then you have no basis for God-given rights.
00:48:03.960
You have no basis for saying that we were all created equally by our creator with certain
00:48:08.900
inalienable rights, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
00:48:13.280
You don't have a transcendent objective basis for right and wrong, for why murder is wrong,
00:48:21.120
You no longer have at least a deistic, theistic foundation of where our rights come from, what
00:48:27.560
our laws should be, when life begins, what is a male, what is a female.
00:48:34.200
Remember, secularism is not a neutral worldview.
00:48:37.920
So yes and amen to the criticism of Christian nationalism that says that America is God's chosen
00:48:46.840
land and that all the biblical prophecies point to it.
00:48:50.300
Yes and amen to criticism of progressive Christianity, which basically says that we also are going
00:49:03.320
Anyone that tries to say that God's kingdom is going to be brought here on earth by the
00:49:07.600
politicians that we vote for or our political activism is wrong.
00:49:13.620
Quite frankly, people on the right and the left do that, and we should reject those.
00:49:19.760
But I do not agree with condemnation of Christians trying to influence the world in which they
00:49:30.500
Seculars have no problem influencing the spheres that they occupy with their worldview.
00:49:34.620
Progressives have no problem with influencing the spheres that they occupy with their worldview.
00:49:39.420
And I just want to point out, and I really have to finish, but I just want to point out also
00:49:45.600
that there is hardly ever any criticism of people on the left using Christianity or fusing
00:49:55.720
And I just want to play you a short little clip of Biden's inauguration last week doing just that.
00:50:13.120
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree,
00:50:21.460
And I promise you this, as the Bible says, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
00:50:38.900
Now, I'm not a Catholic, but I have it on good authority that from the Catholics I know
00:50:45.620
that you can't actually be considered a faithful Catholic and be pro-abortion.
00:50:49.620
I mean, he's pro-access to abortion through all nine months paid for by the taxpayer.
00:50:55.020
The Catholic friends that I have say that it is impossible to be in good standing with the
00:51:07.100
Again, I'm not a Catholic, and so I can't speak to that.
00:51:14.020
I think it was at a mass in South Carolina because of his stance on abortion.
00:51:20.100
I mean, he has been very wishy-washy on all of his moral views, like politicians typically are.
00:51:26.280
But I don't have any problem with using Bible verses and singing Amazing Grace in the inauguration.
00:51:35.360
But if you're saying that Christian nationalism is the fusing of Christian symbolism or Christianity
00:51:40.920
with American civic life or trying to influence American civic life with Christianity,
00:51:51.880
oh, you know, you have to be a socialist or you have to believe in the Green New Deal
00:51:57.520
People who claim that Jesus is a socialist and that's why we should have XYZ legislation.
00:52:04.020
Why is it only conservative Christians who want to influence the spheres in which they occupy
00:52:08.840
or want to influence legislation or want to influence civic life with the Bible?
00:52:18.960
Again, I don't have any problem with the Biden administration using this.
00:52:24.880
In some ways, I thought that Trump using Christian symbolism was hypocritical too
00:52:28.720
because I'm not sure that he knows anything about the Bible or Christianity whatsoever.
00:52:35.020
But for people who are so dogmatically and militantly, this administration,
00:52:40.160
secular in their beliefs about when life begins, their beliefs about abortion,
00:52:43.540
their beliefs about religious liberty, their beliefs about men and women and biology,
00:52:48.920
they are so militantly secular and leftist in those things to then use Christian symbolism.
00:52:54.380
I guess that's the kind of Christian nationalism that people on the left think is fine.
00:52:59.080
Like, I guess that's the acceptable form of Christianity when it manifests itself
00:53:10.540
So for everyone on the left who says Christian nationalism is going to be held to account,
00:53:17.100
Tell me how it's different than what happened at the inauguration.
00:53:19.920
Tell me exactly what you mean by Christian nationalism, exactly what it looks like
00:53:30.800
We might be able to get on the same page about what it means,
00:53:33.520
and if so, we can stand up against it together.
00:53:36.540
But if you're misapplying these vague definitions because you think it puts you on the right side
00:53:41.680
of history, as Lecrae said about himself being on the right side of history,
00:53:45.880
which we could get into that whole thing, but we won't,
00:53:48.220
that I think you need to take a step back and be very careful about the accusations
00:53:58.160
then you don't need to be engaging in any debates about it.
00:54:01.840
And if you also can't define critical race theory,
00:54:04.280
then you don't need to be engaging in any debates on it,
00:54:07.180
whether you're being accused of it or whether you're accusing someone else of it.
00:54:10.380
Let's all take as many pains as possible to define our terms and to be as specific as possible.