Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 01, 2021


Ep 430 ｜ Is 'Christian Nationalism' a Threat to Evangelicalism？ ｜ Guest： Nathan Finochio


Episode Stats


Length

52 minutes

Words per minute

164.05609

Word count

8,606

Sentence count

13

Harmful content

Toxicity

21

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Nathan Finocchio is the founder of Theosu, the online seminary Theos University, which is a subscription based theological education site. In this episode, we talk about deconstructionism, Christian nationalism, nationalism, and imperialism, and much more.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 hey guys welcome to relatable today i am talking to nathan finocchio you guys probably i know a
00:00:16.420 lot of you do you follow him on instagram um and you know of him you know of theos university
00:00:22.320 the online seminary that he is a part of today we are going to talk about a whole host of things
00:00:28.200 it's really a wide-ranging conversation that i know that you guys are going to like because he's
00:00:31.940 super interesting we are going to talk about deconstructionism um he's a charismatic and so
00:00:37.840 he's going to talk about some of the issues that he sees in kind of his part of uh the christian
00:00:43.040 evangelical world and then we are going to have a conversation about christian nationalism nationalism
00:00:49.720 imperialism um he's got some really interesting perspectives on that and he has a lot to say
00:00:56.600 that honestly i don't think that we talk about in a very serious way very much in the christian
00:01:01.720 evangelical world and so we're going to have that conversation and because progressives are having
00:01:06.380 that conversation so that means that we need to understand what's going on so i'm really excited
00:01:11.460 for you to listen to this so without further ado here is nathan finocchio
00:01:18.820 nathan thank you so much for joining us can you first tell everyone who you are and what you do
00:01:28.940 yeah so my name is nathan finocchio and i am the founder of theos you and theos seminary theos you
00:01:38.360 is a subscription based theological uh education site basically we condense um kind of full length
00:01:52.960 bible college courses uh from you know say let's say the the book of romans from like 36 hours to
00:02:00.020 do about six or eight hours um have a uh a wide uh ecumenical range of teachers uh at theos you and
00:02:09.900 people pay you know 14 bucks a month and they subscribe i'm a i'm a charismatic um evangelical
00:02:18.280 politically conservative uh guy and so that's kind of the space that i live in and uh we have about
00:02:26.660 just over 4 000 subscribers kind of worldwide about a quarter of them are pastors of of charismatic
00:02:35.920 evangelical churches um so that's that's kind of uh that's kind of what i do yeah that's awesome
00:02:42.680 tell me why you guys started they asked you we started they asked you because we we feel like
00:02:50.640 a couple things firstly we believe that um the average person sitting in the pew on a sunday morning
00:02:59.160 in an evangelical charismatic church uh their their uh their desire for theological depth is
00:03:06.960 dramatically underestimated um number one number two we feel like uh the charismatic evangelical world
00:03:17.800 is sort of the wild wild west theologically and um and many schools are slipping into sort of a
00:03:27.920 progressive liberalism theologically and um so we just wanted to do something about that we wanted to
00:03:35.300 we wanted to be a part of the solution for what feels like an unraveling of the evangelical charismatic
00:03:45.000 uh movement which i you know has been has been conservative for for decades uh but is now
00:03:52.600 yeah kind of become kind of a swing you know uh yeah swing state so to speak yeah and it's not just
00:04:00.880 the charismatic world it's not just the evangelical charismatic world obviously that's not the world
00:04:05.600 that i occupy but i see that kind of liberalism deconstructionism post-modernism infiltrating
00:04:12.500 you know the the southern baptist convention which certainly has been seen as some kind of pillar of
00:04:18.620 conservatism for a long time why why do you think that's why do you think that's happening why do you
00:04:24.460 think this kind of post-modern liberalism is infiltrating so many parts of the church that
00:04:29.220 used to be seen as staunchly conservative yeah uh a couple of reasons um i think that
00:04:38.200 there's a crisis of authority um and so so so so firstly i'd say it's epistemological i think that
00:04:47.920 kids the younger generation um has learned um an epistemology that lends itself to deconstruction that
00:04:59.040 lends itself to progressive um theology and that epistemology is that uh i i can't trust
00:05:07.820 traditional forms of authority i can't trust the church i can't trust my own history so you know
00:05:15.160 america they're taught america's bad they're taught the church is bad they're taught the bible hurt you 0.90
00:05:20.000 know hurts people um and that love is the most important thing and self is the most important
00:05:26.940 thing and so to me it's a it's a crisis of authority it's a crisis of uh and there's just an immense
00:05:35.120 um multiplied pressure on these young people to make moral choices and not be moral monsters like
00:05:43.780 america like the church um so that that to me it's like it's it's sort of like a it's a it's a it's a
00:05:52.320 conundrum of i don't want to be man like america's bad the church is bad i don't want to be bad so i need
00:06:00.320 to sort of but but but i i think that god is right and god is good so i don't want to throw god out i
00:06:08.000 don't want to i don't want to throw jesus out entirely it's interesting ali like nobody's really
00:06:13.140 throwing jesus out they're just giving jesus a new accent and putting new clothes on him um yeah and
00:06:20.380 that that's kind of what you know that's obviously that's deconstruction that's the most frustrating
00:06:24.640 thing so it's like you know they want their cake their cake and and they want to eat it too
00:06:29.380 so that that's kind of my my yeah yeah little minute spin yeah i mean there's so many different
00:06:37.100 factors i think that have gone into why we're in the place that we're in and evangelicalism can you
00:06:44.960 talk a little bit more about deconstruction there are some people that they they don't know what it is
00:06:51.460 and we're also told by people that almost like you said like almost sound biblical like they sound
00:06:57.080 like they really love jesus saying that deconstruction is actually a key part of
00:07:01.680 sanctification that job deconstructed his faith and so there might be some people listening who think
00:07:07.420 you know deconstruction is awesome and wonderful and it's something that we all have to do can you
00:07:12.480 kind of just break that down for us yeah sure i mean i think you do a wonderful job
00:07:17.740 um yourself but uh just a just a couple of thoughts i think that
00:07:22.600 we all we all sort of um so deconstruction i think is misunderstood to be education right so
00:07:34.040 so um you know for example i grew up in a charismatic community and there were things in the charismatic
00:07:40.380 community that i didn't necessarily like and so i sort of you know went out exploring and i decided
00:07:47.440 that there were probably some excesses there's some weird teachings on faith there's some you know
00:07:51.120 so but that's that's that's just i mean that's that's what you do you as you grow up you you start
00:07:57.220 to you know read and you start to read the reformers or you read you know the the patristics or
00:08:02.260 whatever and you just add knowledge to your faith which is what you're supposed to do as a christian
00:08:07.840 deconstruction is questioning um the meta narratives so it's kind of like you know is the bible even true
00:08:19.220 what parts are even true so it's it's it's deacon i mean eve was the first person to deconstruct
00:08:25.300 right god told her thing and she decided to question god's word you know who god is which is an extension
00:08:34.220 of who god is and that's what deconstruction is deconstruction is basically going you know what
00:08:38.920 i'm willing to turn this whole thing upside down because ultimately i don't trust anybody including
00:08:47.180 god myself is the locus of authority and i only trust myself and my experiences and once again coming
00:08:54.200 getting back to the epistemological factor there um so that's what deconstruction is and very few people
00:09:00.520 come back from it very few people return right to orthodox um to historic orthodox christianity so
00:09:08.360 it's it's because it's you know once you start going down that path of you know you're tugging
00:09:14.820 you know deconstruction has its whole community it's kind of like if you start you know obsessing over
00:09:20.700 um you know i don't know fitness you know fitness has its it's it's a whole community you know you
00:09:27.880 start wearing fitness fit fash and you see you know and you start working up in garages you know
00:09:34.720 like so deconstruction has a whole thing to it and people get into that and they start following all
00:09:41.280 these accounts and they just start literally talking babble nonsense yeah right and that actually
00:09:48.040 is a perfect point that leads to the question that i was about to ask is that we're talking about
00:09:55.280 epistemology and how they view you know truth through the prism of themselves the only thing
00:10:03.440 like you said that they can trust is themselves their feelings their lived experiences i actually
00:10:07.440 saw a post the other day that said like your uh your marginalized status and your lived experiences
00:10:15.780 are holier than the bible so that i think is a good summation of what deconstructionists think but
00:10:23.480 at the same time even though in that like hyper individualistic personal subjective way of
00:10:29.980 obtaining knowledge they all end up saying the same thing so really they just replace what they see as
00:10:37.000 religious dogma and orthodox christianity for other kinds of religious dogma they say that it's just
00:10:43.400 through them that they're finding truth but they all have the same talking points and so it seems like
00:10:49.460 they're just adopting they're adopting a new doctrine and they are still believing in some
00:10:55.560 kind of absolute truth because surely if you just trusted yourself you would all be kind of coming up
00:11:02.180 with different ideas of what faith and what jesus and what god looks like but they all think that jesus
00:11:07.260 was a transgender communist so like where does that happen like where are these people going to get this 0.93
00:11:13.160 information to get their new dogmas and to get their new faith it's not just their lived
00:11:17.900 experiences they must have some kind of source yeah i reckon that there's there's definitely
00:11:22.880 you know there's there's unity among uh the orthodox and then there's unity among the periphery
00:11:29.440 and there are some key players in the peripheral uh the the peripheral world of christianity i would
00:11:37.880 say like richard roar would be one of them um brian zahn would be one of them um these are some you know
00:11:45.620 some some some some authors that they that people you know eventually gravitate to um and so you know
00:11:54.240 they they obviously they like you said they have a dogma they have there is a there is some sort of
00:11:59.500 fellowship some sort of a common held system of belief um but i think that at the end of the day
00:12:06.780 it's probably motivated by um once again lots of motivations perhaps one of the motivations is that
00:12:15.260 they you know they have a misguided sense of love and and to me that's that's what's one of the ear
00:12:22.620 marks or the a watermark of um of richard roar and brian zahn is that you know god is never retributive
00:12:30.600 in his in his justice everybody gets to go to heaven you know rob bell um so it's a it's a it's
00:12:37.140 a it's a christian heresy all their heresies are christian which is hilarious and you're right you
00:12:41.320 know that nobody's deconstructing to become you know to worship the norse gods right like the norse
00:12:47.660 gods are cruel the norse gods are horrible nobody's nobody's deconstructing to become a pagan
00:12:53.260 all of the um all of the deconstructionists are just christian heresies so that's kind of cute
00:13:00.520 yeah that's interesting and why is it you mentioned this before like why is it that they try to
00:13:07.240 not just retain jesus but like you said give him new clothes recharacterize him and then really like
00:13:14.940 detach him from the trinity i've noticed because they don't want to think that he has anything to do
00:13:20.680 with the god of the old testament even if that even existed they would probably say like how do
00:13:26.900 they how do they get that like why do they hold on to jesus so tightly and yet the jesus they hold on
00:13:32.560 to is not even the jesus we see depicted in the gospels why not just let go of jesus altogether
00:13:37.740 because because i think that they're nervous i think they're scared i honestly think that they
00:13:44.540 believe that there's an afterlife it's it's a it's really hard to like the last thing that a
00:13:52.600 deconstructionist has to do is scrub their conscience to basically sear their conscience
00:13:58.780 of uh of this uh of the idea that there is an afterlife because i do think that that we all do have some
00:14:08.260 sense of justice like surely the the world is broken it needs to be put to right and i think that most of
00:14:14.260 them are going okay i don't like orthodox christian i don't like organized religion but i'm going to
00:14:19.440 hold on to jesus because then i think that i i still squeeze in somehow so it's i think it's sort of
00:14:26.100 their fire insurance and and you know you don't get rid of uh the you know even you know the psyche
00:14:33.980 i mean it's burned into you the the reality of hell right like the the and that there's surely
00:14:41.860 there'd be a justice so i i think i think that's exactly it that the the heresies are christian
00:14:48.780 because they're scared to to just let go to totally let go yeah i also think that if you can cast
00:14:59.780 jesus into whatever image you want it's kind of like what c.s lewis talks about in um screw tape
00:15:06.940 letters about social justice christianity using jesus or using christianity as a means to their
00:15:13.460 ends i think jesus is a really nice mascot because like you said you can kind of retain your
00:15:19.680 christianity but you can you know believe whatever you want to believe and jesus just comes along for
00:15:27.540 the ride he can make you feel good about your political activism if you believe that he was a
00:15:31.740 palestinian you know freedom fighter who just you know advocates for all the things that you advocate
00:15:37.880 for so i think it's also like a righteous sounding way to be to be liberal um and to be a secular
00:15:49.220 leftist that jesus is kind of just coming along for the ride of your ideological journey yeah i think
00:15:56.460 it's that's similar to what you said though that having jesus still at least pat you on the back
00:16:01.220 and still be your cheerleader that makes you feel like you're on the right path even if you've
00:16:06.580 abandoned all idea of christian morality yeah that's that's absolutely it yeah shaking shaking jesus
00:16:15.540 is going to make you really nervous because um you know it's interesting well you quoted c.s lewis
00:16:23.760 and uh isn't it funny kind of an aside here that c.s lewis is now like a right-wing talking point
00:16:32.440 i i think i saw you say that on instagram i would love for you to give me an example of that so people
00:16:39.920 are saying like if you quote c.s lewis then you're what like you're a bigot or you're on the right or
00:16:45.920 what is it well for example like c.s lewis writes an essay on capital punishment he writes an essay on
00:16:55.300 you know in the same one as he writes about retributive justice on just desserts um he writes
00:17:01.660 uh in the abolition of man he absolutely slams socialism um yeah he writes on patriotism like
00:17:11.080 quite uh quite profusely and he and patriotism and kind of nationalism are somewhat synonymous in
00:17:19.660 terms of his descriptions as descriptors um you know lewis is for all intents and purposes orthodox
00:17:25.920 uh mere christianity is is is just cat it's just high anglican catechism um and so all that to say
00:17:33.860 you know c.s lewis was sort of like he was like in my world particularly when i grew up he was like sort
00:17:38.940 of like left of center and like all of my social justice friends would like quote c.s lewis and now
00:17:45.400 like none of them quote c.s lewis uh which i think is absolutely hilarious oh in the screw tape letters
00:17:52.000 you know c.s lewis uh talks about how christians are christians will will use social justice you know
00:18:00.260 to to get their means that that you know the that like social justice is essentially um a ploy of the
00:18:07.360 enemy you know to to kind of socialize christianity and make it palatable but really they're you know
00:18:14.220 they'll have other um ends so it's just it's hilarious um you know as you read c.s lewis
00:18:20.860 you talked about um you mentioned their nationalism and patriotism that is also um like a flashpoint
00:18:43.480 in christian conversations right now that a lot of the people i would say not even just totally
00:18:49.720 progressive christians but like people maybe center laughter in the center they're really afraid
00:18:55.000 to say anything about american exceptionalism or that america is a great country there's even been
00:19:00.260 this like towards the fourth of july and then we hear all this stuff about christian nationalism being
00:19:06.040 the biggest threat to christianity people like beth moore have said things like that and you've really
00:19:10.920 pushed back against that in a way that i haven't seen anyone else do because i've kind of been like
00:19:17.140 well no i don't think christian nationalism is it is a big threat and you have kind of said what's
00:19:21.880 wrong with christian nationalism so i kind of just want to hear your perspective on all that
00:19:26.280 yeah so so i think that christian that okay so so uh i'll try to lay this out um as best i can so
00:19:35.900 firstly we all have a nationalistic picture right like would you would you not agree that every
00:19:43.320 everybody has a nationalistic idea like as in i want the country should be like this the country
00:19:48.700 should be less christian or more secular or more like like doesn't wouldn't you agree that everybody
00:19:55.700 has a nationalistic ideal yeah like you're saying everyone has an idea of what they think the country
00:20:03.560 should be like correct yeah exactly so christians are just honest about how they want the country to
00:20:12.660 be um yeah we want we we want our legislation to be informed by judeo-christian principles we
00:20:21.620 right all legislation is moral um and so we that that's we're just we're we're frank we're honest this
00:20:30.160 is this is what we believe people who are are secularists you know draw from this that everybody
00:20:34.920 draws from some sort of moral pool right so um so my my my first contention is that we all have a
00:20:43.940 nationalistic ideal uh this is what the country should be like we all vote um we all engage politically
00:20:50.880 um all of our justice initiatives they all come from some sort of moral pool so so when you say
00:20:57.360 christian nationalists i think to myself i you know if jesus was building a country
00:21:03.720 like wouldn't that be cool you know like what if we followed jesus's ideals of you know loving people
00:21:10.960 and and and defending people and so so you know at first glance you know just on face value christian
00:21:19.440 nationalists seems like actually that's a great idea you know to to have a country you know i wish all of
00:21:25.200 god's people were you know were prophets like why wouldn't wouldn't that be great so number one
00:21:30.540 number two though i found i've come to learn uh there's a book uh written recently about about
00:21:37.520 christian nationalism the the the title escapes me at the moment um but basically like is it the
00:21:44.700 winning back america for god one yeah yeah that's it when it it's about it's from like the
00:21:51.140 progressive perspective right correct yeah and basically what it does is it just caricatures
00:21:56.920 it basically takes the name christian nationalist and then caricatures this this concept so it so
00:22:04.840 instead of it meaning like christian and nationalist which we should talk about what nationalist means
00:22:11.480 it puts these two together and it's like christian nationalists you know hate immigration christian 0.98
00:22:17.820 you know like and just it's a litany of ridiculous characters hate interracial interracial marriage 0.97
00:22:24.900 they said that um which i don't know where they get this information i think they they base it off of
00:22:30.880 like one misguided poll or something like that and they decided they does everything that is bad about
00:22:36.960 anyone they decided okay like let's make a list of that and then let's say that people who are christian
00:22:44.000 nationalists according to our definition like hold on to those character qualities like not liking a 0.93
00:22:49.560 black and a white person getting married yeah yeah exactly it's just all ridiculous so so so that is 0.97
00:22:55.500 kind of a working and i was seeing christian nationalists pop up everywhere on instagram you 0.96
00:23:00.160 know people going you know we need to repent of christian nationalism and i'm like what are you
00:23:04.380 talking about like what you know and i kept on asking people to define what it was like in christian
00:23:10.960 nationalism yeah total sincerity you know like would you please tell me what and nobody would
00:23:16.640 respond to me absolutely nobody would respond to me finally i got a pdf uh which was basically a
00:23:23.940 um sort of a a a skeleton or a sketch of what that book was and then i began okay got you okay so
00:23:32.680 it is a pejorative term um and these are um these are the descriptors etc so
00:23:38.460 uh and i i kind of worked my way through it and kind of responded to it it's just it's just a lot
00:23:43.720 of nonsense but um nationalism so one of my favorite authors uh gk chesterton uh who was a mentor of c.s
00:23:51.380 lewis c.s lewis said of chesterton i only ever added water to his wine um so a lot of of lewis's views
00:23:59.480 are in chesterton um and and chesterton was a and he he self-defined as an english nationalist
00:24:07.440 and when he talked about nationalism he didn't talk about uh in he didn't he didn't mean it as
00:24:14.920 imperialism so this is this is one of the issues that people don't understand about nationalism
00:24:19.260 nationalism is not imperialism so imperialism is when you violate the sovereignty of another country
00:24:28.500 like for example um you know hitler was hitler a nationalist yeah in some ways he was a nationalist
00:24:36.060 but it wasn't his nationalism that got him in trouble um it was his imperialism that got him in
00:24:41.320 trouble right he wanted he wanted the whole world to be the third reich um so nationalism is a it's a
00:24:50.660 passion for your own country and it's a passion for the sovereignty of your own nation um in this
00:24:59.140 way chesterton thought that it was the opposite of um it was the opposite of selfish because you're
00:25:05.220 championing other people not yourself um which i thought was pretty cool and and when he took when
00:25:10.160 chesterton talked about nationalism he loved it because he wanted the french to be french and he
00:25:15.420 wanted the english to be english and when he visited france he's like man i don't want to hear english
00:25:19.400 spoken i want to hear french spoken and i want to eat french foods and i want to be totally immersed
00:25:24.880 in the culture but when i returned to england i want it to be english and so uh his for example
00:25:31.080 chesterton was a stout defender believe it or not at you know the time that he was really writing in the
00:25:37.020 uh the early 20th century um a staunch defender of indian nationalism like you know for example like
00:25:44.820 you know gandhi and that whole movement like hey you know like we want the right of self-determination
00:25:50.040 that's ultimately what nationalism is it's it's the the right of self-determination we want to determine
00:25:56.320 as a country um who we are and what we want to be and we don't want the british to tell us who we are
00:26:03.560 and what we want to be he was a staunch defender of irish nationalism you know let the irish be irish
00:26:10.280 let them be self-determining let them be their own country that's pretty cool stuff nobody would 0.73
00:26:15.820 would would say today you know that indian nationalism sucks and that it's evil or that 0.97
00:26:22.120 irish nationalism sucks or even you know for that matter scottish nationalism i mean we all 0.99
00:26:26.280 everybody watches that movie braveheart and we all cry and we all hate long shanks and we all you 0.96
00:26:32.320 know freedom and we paint our faces blue and we're obsessed with scottish nationalism but for some
00:26:37.900 reason there's a disconnect when we talk about american nationalism and scottish nationalism and that
00:26:43.460 right there's the problem so yeah american nationalism is a desire for self-determination
00:26:49.880 now the problem with american nationalism is there's there's there's kind of two views so
00:26:55.560 in my estimation trump was an american nationalist he was not an imperialist for the most part um an
00:27:03.360 imperialist is is somebody who so for example i mean let's just take the eu and the un for an example
00:27:09.000 um those are imperial structures so um the assyrian empire the egyptian empire the babylonian empire
00:27:19.380 those were imperial empires right they they they conquered and then they imported their culture and their
00:27:27.240 ideas etc and imperialism american imperialism for example looks like a starbucks on every corner
00:27:34.440 you know of you know you're in germany and you there's a starbucks you know you're in japan there's
00:27:40.320 a starbucks it's horrible and um and then more importantly the eu right like or the un for example
00:27:49.320 those nations regularly violate the self-determination and sovereignty of other nations and they do it by 0.99
00:27:57.560 force right like yeah and and they're unelected bodies who are pushing other elected bodies around
00:28:06.440 and they do it with the force of the american military machine and so there's two types of americanism at the
00:28:13.300 moment there's this imperial americanism and then there's a there's a there's a american nationalist
00:28:19.120 um ideal and the american nationalist ideal is hey we want the right to self-determination
00:28:26.520 and then and so if you add christian nationalism that is just simply um we we want our country we
00:28:34.020 want to vote christian we want to be christian we want to invite everybody to be christian hey if you
00:28:38.720 want to vote secular if you want whatever but we think that our ideals are going to be better ideals
00:28:43.440 and we're going to vote that way and we're you know of course going to be tolerant but we're not
00:28:47.800 going to we're not going to be imperial so that's kind of how um now the reason why nationalism got
00:28:55.360 such a dirty name um because before world war ii everybody was a nationalist like everybody was
00:29:02.600 talking about man you know like you know germany needs to be german and belgium needs to be belgium
00:29:07.240 and you know france needs to be french and every everybody should be what they are etc but after world
00:29:14.700 war ii people falsely diagnosed the german problem with uh misplaced nationalism which a the reason why
00:29:25.080 germany was defeated because other nationalists defeated him b once again uh hitler was an imperialist 0.71
00:29:33.820 he was trying to you know i mean obviously he had other problems like you know killing jews for example 0.53
00:29:39.760 but he wanted everybody to kill jews that's imperialism right like he wanted the polish to treat 0.97
00:29:45.640 the jews in such and such a way um and um and then you know so so so so what happens is after the 0.92
00:29:54.280 after the war everybody begins to go on a tirade and begins to blame you know nationalism well
00:30:00.380 nationalism is why this happened well no hitler was the scorpion's tale of 150 years of of frederican
00:30:09.640 exceptionalism like that that was the issue the issue was that you guys thought that you were you
00:30:16.720 know the cat's meow and you'd been telling you know that you were you know superior even in your race
00:30:22.900 to everybody else and then you know you wanted to you wanted to create an empire you were imperialists
00:30:30.340 you weren't just it wasn't you weren't just naturalists desiring the right of self-determination
00:30:34.900 you're imperialists you thought you were better and you wanted to conquer everybody so um right so
00:30:40.780 people were unable to properly diagnose nationalism at the end of world war ii and they just went along
00:30:47.060 with this thing and we're like yeah nationalism is bad and then that was adopted in the academy
00:30:51.640 right oh yeah national so you know you know in the 1950s and 1960s all of a sudden we start to see this
00:30:56.360 whole uh kickback against nationalism and now nationalism is a dirty word and now it's becoming a pejorative word
00:31:03.040 and let's say patriot not nationalist and the issue is now uh yoram azoni has a book called the virtue of
00:31:10.380 nationalism which i highly highly highly recommend uh he's actually uh he's he's a jew he's an old 0.99
00:31:16.740 testament scholar which is kind of fun and he is a he's a an israeli nationalist and he talks about
00:31:24.200 there's just i could go on and on about about nationalism and about the book and about his views but
00:31:29.320 uh chesterton does the same thing chesterton talks about how the a nation is less like a business
00:31:35.380 and more like a family a nation is less a group of individuals and more a family like a in a marriage
00:31:44.380 you know you get into a marriage you marry a woman two individuals kind of coming together and it's
00:31:48.900 sort of like a business contract but then after a while you start having kids everything changes i mean
00:31:53.760 those kids aren't in the relationship with you because it's a business right there there are other
00:31:59.160 loyalties um and so his his idea here is that nationalism understands that nations are more than
00:32:08.960 individuals and there are other loyalties and when you don't um when you disregard those nuances
00:32:17.520 of those extended and complex loyalties that's when you start to get into political trouble um so all
00:32:24.620 that to say that's sort of my my two cents on on christian nationalism i think it's a great idea
00:32:29.640 i think that it's a good idea i think it's a god idea i think that nations are a god idea um you know
00:32:37.180 the the scriptures the book of revelation for example talks about the nations bringing their wealth
00:32:40.820 so um that's my two cents i have a lot of thoughts and a lot of questions so so i think that there are
00:32:51.220 like your definition of nationalism which i would agree is simply saying that we need to put the needs
00:32:58.820 of our country before the needs of another country if you are the leader of that country and you would
00:33:05.220 say that that's a good thing that in the same way that a family would also in the same way that like
00:33:11.080 a mayor would or a governor would it's funny how people say that putting america first like that was
00:33:16.880 trump's line america first oh that's bigoted that's so wrong that seems to be what a lot of left-leaning
00:33:22.200 christians had a hard time with like that's prideful that's what we need to repent of jesus doesn't care
00:33:27.480 about america all that kind of stuff but you would never blame the mayor of tulsa for saying hey
00:33:32.460 tulsa is the best city in the country i love the people of tulsa and i don't care i mean i i'm sorry
00:33:39.620 but i don't care about what baltimore needs or whatever it is my priority is tulsa and i'm gonna
00:33:45.660 put the needs of the people of tulsa before the needs of the people of sacramento or whatever no one
00:33:51.180 would fault someone for that and actually you would probably think it was really weird if the mayor of
00:33:57.360 tulsa was like you know i really actually care just as much about dallas as i do about tulsa you'd be
00:34:03.580 like no you're a horrible leader but for whatever reason when it comes to national leadership and like 0.50
00:34:09.120 you said not of any other country but of america people think that's prideful if the leader of kenya
00:34:15.280 said i love kenya i love kenyans i love kenyan values and i want to put kenya first there's not a
00:34:22.120 leftist in america who would think that that's bigoted or wrong or supremacist but because i think
00:34:27.820 like you said i guess after world war ii and i hadn't thought about that the west started i guess
00:34:34.400 you know thinking that oh nationalism is bad exceptionalism is bad which i i don't think
00:34:40.880 exceptionalism is bad i think it's totally fine if someone from australia thinks australia
00:34:45.180 is the best country in the world like i want their leaders to think that i want them to like
00:34:50.560 australia i want them to be patriotic and people also i think that they get confused between that
00:34:56.420 mentality which like i like you said um i think is good and then thinking that like that by saying
00:35:03.900 that you're saying that god thinks that americans are superior to other christian or like other people
00:35:11.600 in the world and i think that's where when people say you need to repent of christian nationalism
00:35:16.040 that's what they are assuming that patriotic americans think that i think that god loves us
00:35:22.360 better than they love someone from south america or that we are god's chosen nation like israel in the
00:35:30.200 old testament and america not christians but america is the city on a hill and people from brazil don't
00:35:37.520 matter i think that is what they think they are critiquing when they critique christian nationalism
00:35:44.020 do you agree with that 100 they they think that that there's there's this hilarious idea that
00:35:54.120 americans it's a caricature that conservative americans don't care about the world don't care about other 1.00
00:36:02.400 people think that you know that jesus is american the jesus is white like it's it's so stupid it's such a 1.00
00:36:09.900 stupid caricature meanwhile uh you know evangelicals um you know feeding the world but we adopt more 1.00
00:36:20.260 kids from third world countries you know uh by ratio we give we we started all of the you know like 1.00
00:36:28.400 world vision and and compassion etc we you know we go on everybody goes on mission trips every i mean
00:36:35.140 i remember being dragged to haiti a couple times by my dad um you know that that's what we do as
00:36:40.660 conservative christians we that's what you do you you get involved you you go to the soup kitchen you
00:36:45.600 know like you that's what we so it's just utter and total nonsense it's it's it's um it's a it's a it's a 0.57
00:36:55.480 caricature and it doesn't hold up um but it's convenient right like and and and it's it's a great way to
00:37:03.040 bludgeon um conservatives for going yeah no i i believe in you know uh for example i'm a canadian
00:37:10.060 and i i live in the united states and you know on a visa um and i've been here for for 10 years
00:37:16.260 and you know i have to i by all means for all intents and purposes i'm i'm an i'm an immigrant
00:37:22.840 um and i believe in the process of immigration you gotta know who's coming into your country but
00:37:28.600 if you're conservative and you say that um particularly if you're a white evangelical 0.64
00:37:33.840 right automatically you don't care about people you just you hate people and conservatives hate 0.88
00:37:40.160 people and you're a you're a christian nationalist you don't want anybody who's not white or christian
00:37:45.880 to come in the country no that's literally never said that although hey uh right would it be a bad
00:37:52.080 thing if we had if people that came to america wanted to be american you know like and and they
00:37:59.280 held some of the american philosophy well there is no american philosophy actually there there is
00:38:03.300 there actually is american philosophy um so you know and that's a whole other conversation
00:38:09.960 yeah do you think this is my other question that i thought about when you were talking do you think
00:38:16.680 that imperialism how you defined and described it is always wrong because you kind of described it as
00:38:25.320 trying to like import or export i guess ideas into another country you also kind of talked about like
00:38:34.040 the exporting of power and influence in other countries but you also talked about like exporting
00:38:38.660 businesses like starbucks into other countries like those are all different forms of maybe a kind of
00:38:44.180 imperialism do you always think it's wrong because you kind of contrasted it to nationalism which you
00:38:50.440 think is good but it sounds like you think imperialism is always wrong is it always wrong in your
00:38:55.180 opinion no no no so for example i'm not saying that that you know for like if they ask you that i mean
00:39:01.980 my business is in like you know 60 countries or something so i don't think that doing trade and doing
00:39:10.160 business etc is is wrong um imperialism is it is no so for example like yoram has yoram has only calls
00:39:25.460 the eu the fourth reich which i think is hilarious um and he just basically says like germany's still the
00:39:33.380 one that is setting all of the pace they're the ones that are making all the decisions for everybody
00:39:39.860 else in the eu so it's still german rule but it's economic um so can there be kind of you know
00:39:50.980 economic you know warfare yeah absolutely um am i saying that i'm not i'm not comparing that to trade
00:40:01.300 i'm just saying you know if you don't do this well then we won't lend you this you know so you know you
00:40:05.660 have to fall in line and you're violating somebody else's sovereignty you know like what if what if
00:40:10.520 greece doesn't want to let in any more refugees or immigrants they're like literally hey guys we 1.00
00:40:15.960 have no money we haven't had any money for 20 years right but the eu goes well if you're gonna be a
00:40:21.780 part of the eu and you're gonna get bank loans from us then you have to it's got to be open doors
00:40:25.400 bring bring the cages down bring the fences down right that is that's the fourth reich
00:40:32.040 as unpopular as it may sound um so that's sort of what i mean more by imperialism but for example
00:40:39.920 um i don't i i like the world the way it is and so that that doesn't mean that a japanese person
00:40:47.860 you know can't open up a chick-fil-a you know i mean like bring chick-fil-a to japan by all means
00:40:54.000 um but i like japan because it's japanese and that it's not american and that's i think one of the
00:41:02.440 the the i think the fundamental understandings of nationalism is is that nationalism is just about
00:41:09.260 nations keeping their cultures and and being the way they are and thinking the way they think and 1.00
00:41:14.640 and allowing them to be that way um and not um economically muscling them into this that or the
00:41:24.480 other thing yeah i think also it can't just be defined as like any other culture trying to influence
00:41:34.960 another culture because like you talked about okay well we defeated the germans in world war ii 0.95
00:41:42.720 because of not just german imperialism but bad german imperialism based on bad ideas and we decided
00:41:50.320 like no i'm sorry germany like you're not gonna do that and we're gonna push back on you so i guess
00:41:56.900 you could argue that that was a form of imperialism from the allied forces saying i'm sorry germany like
00:42:03.420 you don't have a right to do that and i think that i think that we have to make a distinction there
00:42:08.720 because we don't want to be morally relativistic because right is right and wrong is wrong and the
00:42:13.780 problem with the third right was not just imperialism was not just nationalism is that it
00:42:17.820 was a bad idea it was a bad idea like objectively it was a bad idea and so when you have good ideas
00:42:24.020 like we actually want that to influence like i do think american foreign policy has been misguided in
00:42:30.600 some ways like we thought that importing capitalism into china was going to make them be this free
00:42:36.580 democracy like that didn't turn out well it just gave them more power to be to be communist but
00:42:42.980 then you look at like you know the british colony of hong kong like importing western values into hong
00:42:49.080 kong was really good for hong kong like they wanted those western values like they wanted that western rule
00:42:54.960 of law and now that they're under the rule of china like they have no autonomy or no freedom so
00:42:59.280 i think it's also important to distinguish between like trying to influence people with good ideas
00:43:05.360 is good influencing people with bad ideas is bad and i i'm not sure like i don't know if we can
00:43:12.000 necessarily say that that's imperialism but i also think it's important to just be objective morally
00:43:17.980 that yeah some ideas are really bad to import and some ideas are good yeah exactly so i totally agree
00:43:23.420 like i don't think imperialism is influencing people with good ideas i think imperialism is
00:43:28.400 right right so um yes the american reaction for example you know england was being bombed um
00:43:37.400 holland had been invaded poland had been invaded so germany had violated the self-determination
00:43:45.260 of other countries and so when we when we declared war on germany we weren't fighting in germany first
00:43:51.340 we were fighting in places where they had muscled for our ally yeah shown imperial strength if that
00:43:57.640 makes sense so you know an imperialistic war is a war where you violate the sovereignty of somebody
00:44:03.960 else um for you know for for so for example you know augustine as a christian you know i'm an
00:44:11.080 augustinian in terms of you know my philosophy on war and augustine believes that defensive war
00:44:17.080 is the only just war so for example the americans coming to the aid of the south vietnamese
00:44:24.100 that would that's a as far as i'm concerned that's a just war if your allies going hey we're being
00:44:30.760 killed right now and we need help that that's a just war that might be the most uh you know um
00:44:38.400 controversial thing i'll ever say um but that that's what i believe so but that's not a but
00:44:44.120 but the war in vietnam was not imperialistic in the sense that america came uninvited into the war
00:44:51.700 no america came invited into the war by their south vietnamese allies who were perishing
00:44:57.780 yeah that is that's controversial because now we look at american history through the lens of
00:45:06.460 american strength is always bad it's always been the source of oppression and repression and it's all 1.00
00:45:13.160 it's also interesting how if you like that kind of worldview if you point out to someone who
00:45:18.320 believes that like well look at all these other countries that are still oppressing their people
00:45:22.760 that are corrupt that have nothing to do with america still somehow conveniently it always falls
00:45:27.900 back on american imperialism it always falls back that it's actually america's fault that africa is poor
00:45:33.580 and not the fact that china is actually colonizing and imperialistically invading those countries as we
00:45:40.620 speak right now and exploiting them that's a great example i think of what you're talking about 0.73
00:45:44.680 if you're overweight and you're black it's it's white supremacy yeah that's the critical race theory 0.95
00:45:52.280 worldview everything has to fit into america bad white bad evangelical bad now evangelical has been kind 0.98
00:45:58.920 of like put into that i saw an article in the new york times the other day how white evangelicals
00:46:04.680 are going to like stop the vaccination effort and um and basically arguing okay white evangelicals are
00:46:14.080 killing people because of this and then they linked to the they linked to the study that shows what
00:46:20.820 white evangelicals think about the vaccines well the majority 55 percent of white evangelicals plan to
00:46:26.640 get the vaccine so that they buried that lead that the majority of white evangelicals plan to get the
00:46:32.900 vaccine and they simply talked about well there's still a large percentage that don't and because
00:46:37.400 of that they're preventing people from getting the vaccine when actually the largest populations of
00:46:41.660 people who are skeptical about the vaccines are not white um and so yeah it's become like the same 0.71
00:46:47.160 people who are saying that you know christian nationalists are are everywhere and that we're the the
00:46:55.700 source of the problem they're the ones that have created this boogeyman they've created this boogeyman
00:47:00.460 that has been um i don't know it's just been seeping into american culture i guess for a very long time
00:47:06.800 yeah okay let's finish by oh go ahead go ahead it just delayed for a second nothing i have nothing
00:47:16.060 nothing okay uh let's finish by quickly talking about your book and telling people where they can
00:47:24.140 can find your book why you wrote this book hearing god and what it's about
00:47:27.940 yeah i wrote the book hearing god because i wanted to hear god um i wrote it because i was um
00:47:35.920 my background is growing up charismatic and um and as i began to sort of study you know the
00:47:45.960 scriptures and ask more questions about my you know i'm still charismatic i still identify as
00:47:49.780 charismatic i still believe uh that god talks to people and um but uh i just felt like um maybe my
00:48:00.960 my people the charismatic evangelicals needed um just a guide on you know how to hear god um and
00:48:09.860 specifically that god speaks you know very practically and that the supernatural isn't always spectacular
00:48:15.040 sometimes it's super ordinary um and so like for example like reading the bible well the bible is
00:48:21.380 inspired by the holy spirit and the holy spirit is never going to say something that contradicts the
00:48:27.040 bible because those are his words um so just stuff like that it's sort of like a it's some it's somewhat
00:48:33.840 of a memoir of growing up charismatic um meets laying out foundationally uh how how god speaks god speaks
00:48:42.500 through parents he speaks through mentors he primarily i mean first and foremost he speaks
00:48:48.740 through his word right but i kind of outline it um and then i sort of deal with some charismatic
00:48:53.460 myths it's a bit of a myth busting book so you know does god speak through you know you know if i just
00:49:01.020 flip the you know the the bible and i just put my finger down is that how the bible works is that how
00:49:06.660 is it like like a harry potter map or something um so that's kind of the uh that's the the long and short
00:49:13.380 of it yeah and where can they find that anywhere they want to buy their books yeah amazon um barnes and
00:49:21.000 nobles yeah and you're on instagram that's where i enjoy following both you and your brother you do a lot of
00:49:28.780 myth busting as well on instagram you take posts and kind of break them down a lot of people who listen to this
00:49:34.700 podcast and follow me follow you and they send me you and your brother's post because you guys
00:49:40.020 with a lot of good humor and also in good faith um rebut a lot of the craziness and the chaos that
00:49:46.540 we're seeing with god's word i really appreciate that i appreciate theos you i appreciate all the
00:49:52.060 resources that you are putting into the hands of people they're hungry for truth and the only place
00:49:56.580 where they're finding something masquerading as truth is these progressive deconstructionist
00:50:01.140 instagram account so thank you for for offering alternatives to that and always offering
00:50:07.740 interesting perspectives i really appreciate it yeah well the feeling's mutual i love your
00:50:12.580 instagram account you um your stories they do get a little bit long at times i will say there's a lot
00:50:18.400 of text and it's very small so could you help a brother out and get a little bigger do you have readers
00:50:24.560 what's readers do you have like eyeglasses oh eyeglasses that you can yeah you might you might
00:50:33.640 need it no i know that's true sometimes i have a lot it's typically when i'm copy and pasting like a
00:50:37.780 big chunk of scripture but you're right okay i'll start to break them up i'll start to break them up so
00:50:43.660 the old like you can read them no but you can't because you can't fit it all on there and sometimes
00:50:50.360 like i need to reference i need to reference like this stupid post and so it has to be seen 0.62
00:50:56.340 i can't make the fonts bigger i'm not purposely making them small it's just like this is what can
00:51:01.380 fit but i i hear you i take your feedback i'll apply it okay good no i appreciate how thorough you
00:51:06.960 are i like like i know that if i'm going to read your stories and when i'm reading through them
00:51:11.140 like i appreciate how thorough you are so like you know like you you you put in your resources
00:51:16.440 this is why this is the link you know like you're really good for that i i need to be better at that
00:51:21.820 well that's because i've just noticed that you know people a lot of people i you probably get this
00:51:28.600 too but i'll have talked about something one million times and people i'll get messages being like why
00:51:33.800 don't you ever talk about this or why have you never defined crt and i'm like oh my gosh if i define
00:51:39.500 this one more time i think the people who do follow me are going to freak out because i've talked about
00:51:44.280 it so much and so there's just like i i realize that there's so many people that miss contacts
00:51:50.020 and need contacts and also who have no idea what you and i are talking about like there are just
00:51:55.020 people that are coming in and they need a lot of information and so i do try to provide some
00:51:59.820 context you do so anyway uh thank you so much thank you for taking the time to talk to us um i really
00:52:07.340 really appreciate it and we'll put the links to theos you as well and anything else maybe uh your book
00:52:12.720 as well in the description to this podcast cool thank you
00:52:17.080 you
00:52:19.460 you
00:52:21.460 you
00:52:23.460 you
00:52:25.460 you