Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 28, 2022


Ep 651 ｜ End Times & the Fight for America’s Future ｜ Guest： Steve Deace


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

190.93951

Word Count

8,785

Sentence Count

683

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

28


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. I've got a treat for you today. I'm talking to
00:00:04.400 one of your favorite guests, and that is Steve Dace. Per usual, he's bringing the fire. We're
00:00:11.020 going to talk about eschatology, aka the end times, where he thinks we are in the timeline
00:00:17.540 of eternity, where he thinks this country is, and what we can do realistically about all of
00:00:24.480 the problems that we are facing. As usual, this episode is brought to you by our friends at
00:00:29.840 Good Ranchers American Meat, delivered right to your front door. Go to goodranchers.com
00:00:33.640 slash alley. That's goodranchers.com slash alley. All right, before we get into that conversation,
00:00:49.600 just a couple things. If you love this podcast, please leave us a five-star review wherever you
00:00:55.400 listen. Subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. Don't forget, we have lots of wonderful
00:01:00.060 merch. You can see that if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the stickers, my Razor
00:01:05.680 Respectful Ruckus, Millennials Against Low-Rise Jeans, Politics Matter Because Policies Matter
00:01:10.620 Because People Matter, and of course, Be a Salmon. Tell me what you think our next sticker should be,
00:01:15.440 because I have this nice little space right here on my laptop that really actually bothers me,
00:01:19.720 that I want to fill with another sticker. We've also got t-shirts, and we've got hats. We've got
00:01:24.480 other fun things coming. We'll link the merch in the description of this episode, so check that out,
00:01:34.360 and if you haven't listened to the other episodes from the beginning of this week,
00:01:38.540 do so because they're really important. But without further ado, here is our friend, Steve Dace.
00:01:43.120 Steve, thanks so much for joining us. Typically, we were talking about the news of the day, but today
00:01:50.800 I want to talk more big picture. Give us your assessment of where we are in the timeline of
00:01:56.320 eternity. That is a fascinating question, because I have held, I think, in the course of my walk,
00:02:04.280 every, all three of the major traditional historical eschatological views, the pre-mill,
00:02:10.160 the ah-mill, the post-mill view, and I think there are theological merits to all of them.
00:02:16.720 And I frankly kind of dismissed a lot of the pre-mill view for many years, mainly because I
00:02:23.760 just thought it made people nuts. And, you know... In the sense that people were constantly waiting
00:02:29.480 for Jesus to come back. Yeah, the obsession. And I never really understood with the sentiment of
00:02:36.060 conspiratorial, sinister notions attached to your eschatology. I mean, don't we want Jesus to come
00:02:44.080 back? Like, I remember... I remember there is a... I don't... It's not my show, so I won't mention
00:02:52.500 John Hagee's name. But I watched a video of his... Oh, I just did. I'm sorry. I watched a video of his
00:02:59.020 several years ago, where... And it was all... Bush was still president. And it was about... So this was
00:03:05.600 really soon after my conversion. Okay? And I'm reading and watching everything. You know, I'm
00:03:11.580 trying to learn. I'm trying to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. I mean, I'm like... I'm
00:03:16.460 neck deep. I'm watching and listening to every podcast, every show. I watched everything on TBN. I
00:03:21.140 think I finally recovered from that. Yeah. Okay? And so I watched this video from Hagee talking about
00:03:26.780 Iran building a nuclear reactor, and they're going to attack Israel. And this will be the
00:03:31.140 war of Gog and Magog. Okay? And I found that be fascinating, right? Yeah. Then the second half
00:03:36.140 of the video, though, was Hagee telling us to lobby the Bush administration to preemptively bomb Iran
00:03:42.900 so that they don't... and blow up their reactor so they don't attack Israel. And that got me to
00:03:47.620 thinking after I watched this, Allie. So wait a minute. This is it. This is 6,000 years of recorded
00:03:54.020 human history. Yeah. All right? The proto-evangelion is going to finally be fulfilled. Christ will
00:03:59.800 return to ultimately put his foot on the neck of the serpent once and for all, cast him in the
00:04:06.160 lake of fire. We don't want it. But if Bush bombs Iran, the whole thing is off. Yeah. All right?
00:04:13.220 And God's like, whoa, didn't see that coming. Yes. Blindsided. Yes. But I will say the last
00:04:19.240 the last couple of years, really since March 16th of 2020, I have found myself many evenings alone in
00:04:27.460 my man cave after everybody goes to bed watching pre-millennial eschatology videos on YouTube.
00:04:32.900 And it's not that I am isogetically interpreting my eschatology through the lens of events of the day.
00:04:39.300 It's that the way my mind works, it's very logical. And so things need to seem possible to me,
00:04:45.320 even fantastical things, otherwise I won't grasp them. And I can finally grasp the notion that should
00:04:51.700 there be a rapture level event, the denial and mass formation psychosis that would take place
00:04:58.320 from those who remain after the fact, we've lived through that with COVID. And so I have found myself
00:05:05.140 newly re-intellectually curious about that particular view. That's a long-winded answer to say,
00:05:12.400 I don't know. I do know where we are historically. We are on the precipice of the end of Western
00:05:18.360 civilization, which has had numerous names. It used to be called Christendom, but we're on the
00:05:24.880 precipice of that. We are really the last outpost here in the US. So you don't believe the pendulum
00:05:30.940 is swinging back theory? No, I think there'll be, I think there will be revival or bust. And I think
00:05:37.780 bust can take several different forms. I think what I see is more and is more of a French revolution
00:05:44.760 sentiment, you know, more of a vote popularly and with one angry mob replacing the other one.
00:05:53.460 And this is the sense of urgency that I have with my audience. And when I go speak around the country
00:05:58.540 is I am an ugly American. I prefer Taco Bell to authentic Mexican. And I'm, I can tell you any day of
00:06:06.560 the year, how many days it is until the college football season begins. Okay. I love the accoutrements
00:06:11.640 of being an ugly American. I greatly enjoy it. I like complaining about the fact that, that Gaston
00:06:16.840 moved me to a hotel that was 15 minutes further away. And so I had to shower earlier and I got to
00:06:21.880 complain about that. Okay. I love that stuff. All right. So when I say this, I, I, I say that with
00:06:27.180 this in mind, I want to continue to chill and, uh, and, and do the ugly American thing. But the idea
00:06:35.280 that they're going to say to us now, we're going to chest bind your daughters. We're going to castrate
00:06:42.260 your sons. We're going to, uh, your votes aren't going to count. Um, we're going to, we're going to,
00:06:49.060 we're going to drive you out of using a car into a vehicle that technology you cannot afford and can't
00:06:54.000 recharge on the road and can't drive, even if you could afford it more than 300 miles on, on a
00:06:58.380 highway in a given day. You're not going to grow your own food. You're not going to eat meat. You're
00:07:01.640 going to eat the crickets. We're going to have no borders. You're going to be overrun by illegals.
00:07:05.660 Um, the idea that the people who own 200 million guns alley are just going to sit in their homes
00:07:09.860 forever and say, you know, I guess that there's just, we just sit here and take it. That's not
00:07:14.440 history. Yeah. And so I, I think we have a window right now to reinstill the values of the
00:07:19.860 American revolution. If we don't take advantage of that, what does that look like? Would it,
00:07:24.120 would rights come from God? No, but like, how do we get there? Uh, this is where platforms like
00:07:30.100 what we possess here and churches that understand and know what time it is. Um, those sorts of
00:07:36.920 institutions in different, in different, you know, um, criteria, of course, you're dealing with
00:07:43.980 one that is a specific spiritual institution and we're, we're more of a specific informational
00:07:48.780 institution. But this is where your alliance of Patrick Henry's and Thomas Paine's come together
00:07:54.320 and recognize what time it is. Um, and that we, that if we're going to stand up to what was the
00:08:00.960 spirit of the age in their day, King George III, that it was going to require appealing to a higher
00:08:05.820 power than the people. And that's where divine providence, the governor of the universe, our rights
00:08:11.520 come from God. We have no King, but Jesus resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. Okay. There you
00:08:16.960 go. And we have, we have a window right now that we can, we can, I think, unite a very unique
00:08:23.280 coalition around those themes. If we miss it, what will happen is the French revolution will occur.
00:08:29.160 The, the, the, and, and that's where an angry mob rises up against the aristocracy and throws the
00:08:35.280 church in with the aristocracy because the church never delineated itself from the aristocracy. And we
00:08:41.020 bring out guillotines and we get rid of, uh, the Virgin Mary and the cathedral of Notre Dame and
00:08:45.620 replace it with the goddess of reason. We don't want the reign of terror to happen. And I think
00:08:50.400 we're about a generation away from that. If, if we don't, if, if, if, you know, you're a new parent,
00:08:56.660 I'm an older parent. My kids are now getting married and getting ready to grow up and I'm
00:09:00.400 going to be a grandparent in the next few years. If, if we don't aggressively and Pete, but peaceably
00:09:06.300 use the remaining institutional liberties we have to push back on this spirit of the age, I, I fear we're
00:09:13.140 going to sentence your children and my children and grandchildren to having, according to what
00:09:17.820 history says to confront this unpeaceably. And I don't want that to happen. And so I'm on,
00:09:23.000 that's my mission right now is to try to rally our people to aggressively confront this.
00:09:28.200 Yeah.
00:09:28.760 But peaceably.
00:09:29.420 Here's my, here's my question about the coalition, because you talked about this kind of broad
00:09:34.300 coalition coming together, pushing back against all the destruction that you're talking about.
00:09:37.860 You mentioned chest binding daughters, castrating sons, all this craziness that is being pushed upon
00:09:44.200 us. But you also talked about revival, our rights coming from God, no King, but Jesus, which I agree.
00:09:50.260 Those are the principles of the pushback that we're talking about, but it is not, they, these are not
00:09:55.980 the principles of a lot of people that we are linking arms with. I mean, there are people like our
00:10:00.660 colleague, Dave Rubin, that we agree on, on very important things, but on other really important
00:10:06.020 things like this concept of gay marriage, we don't. So how do we partner effectively with people
00:10:12.720 who do not align with the principles that we believe are integral to an effective pushback?
00:10:18.880 What does that look like?
00:10:20.020 So this has been one of the biggest debates in a post-Reformation world. When, when Christianity
00:10:24.960 was democratized post-Reformation, a lot of these questions weren't debated for, uh, between
00:10:30.620 Augustine and the Reformation because, uh, Rome was the center of the Christian universe.
00:10:35.640 Yeah.
00:10:36.120 And it was deeply embedded in a line with the culture from the formation of the Holy Roman
00:10:40.100 empire to push back against the Muslims to the time of the Reformation post-Reformation.
00:10:44.440 Now this gets democratized and a lot of these dilemmas of early Christians in the first and
00:10:49.180 second pre-Constantine centuries that they had to navigate these questions suddenly come
00:10:54.160 into the fore again. And we had some groups like Anabaptists. We know them today as Mennonites
00:10:58.800 and Amish. They said, we have no place for cultural engagement at all. And they completely
00:11:02.780 just retreated essentially from that world, right? The doctrine of the separation of church
00:11:07.280 and state actually, as we know it today, uh, actually came out of the Reformation from
00:11:11.420 guys like John Knox who were concerned about the intertwining of Rome with government and
00:11:16.180 how that could put down Christian dissent. And so these arguments have been had before.
00:11:21.080 I bring up this history to give your audience confidence. This isn't new. It's going to be
00:11:25.220 new to us in America. But in the history of Christianity, this has actually been far more of the
00:11:31.220 challenge because we've never had a society that was inspired and founded on Christian
00:11:36.560 principles before like this one was. So it's new to us, but it is not new. So let's look
00:11:41.080 through history. And, and how I, what I encourage people to do is to, is to divide things into
00:11:46.440 three different realms. What we can receive, what we must redeem, what we have to reject.
00:11:51.660 Okay. So there are the things that God's word are very clear about. We must reject those
00:11:56.500 things regardless of who they come from, how much we like, uh, everything else that a particular
00:12:01.600 person, uh, stands for when they, when they move into an area that God rejects, we don't condemn
00:12:07.640 them necessarily individually, but that particular vestige of their activity, behavior, out activism,
00:12:14.840 worldview, we say that's a no go for me. Can't do that. And here's why. In fact, I have to oppose
00:12:20.120 that. I'm fine still being with you on everything on the other things we agree with, but on this one,
00:12:23.640 I am going to oppose you. And here's why. Then there is what we must redeem. What is very like
00:12:28.480 an institution. You mentioned marriage that clearly is divinely inspired, has been completely warped
00:12:33.380 and distorted by the spirit of the age. We have a duty, uh, as ambassadors of Christ to redo,
00:12:40.040 redeem the things that come directly from him. And so those things I think are pretty clear too.
00:12:53.640 Marriage is also a gift of common grace that even societies, cultures that do not follow Christ
00:13:01.900 understood. Wow. There is a difference between male and female. This institution and union is
00:13:06.640 important for the perpetuation of humanity and for the stability of society. Correct. So that is
00:13:11.060 something that even if someone doesn't agree with the Bible, doesn't have the special grace that comes
00:13:16.320 from Christ, they should be able to understand, especially a conservative should be able to
00:13:20.200 understand this has to be preserved for us to get everything else that we want. Absolutely correct.
00:13:25.320 And then there's what we can receive the customs of the community or the country and the culture in
00:13:29.660 which we're in taking part in those things that may not have any specific redemptive value. You know,
00:13:35.260 here in the state of Texas, high school football on a Friday night is a ritual, right? So taking part
00:13:39.960 in the high school program in my community that everybody's a part of and going to the games and
00:13:44.240 being a part of that. I mean, as long as I don't make it, you know, I don't have that replace my
00:13:48.220 responsibilities in life. Getting deeply embedded in that as part of my relationship with the
00:13:53.440 culture, I can receive that as long as it doesn't become an idol, right? And I think when we do those
00:13:57.860 things right, then you run into situations like what happened with Dave. And what's funny, though,
00:14:02.860 is after that whole ruckus, I saw a clip where Dave was at a conference with a couple of non-Messianic
00:14:08.580 Jewish thinkers and he and so Rob Omari, and he was specifically asked, should America return to
00:14:14.480 being a Christian country? And he and after working his way through it after a while, he eventually
00:14:19.620 came to the conclusion that the answer was yes. And it was because of the recognition of the common
00:14:24.840 grace or as it was known to our founders and in the Blackstone era, natural law. Yeah. As you know,
00:14:30.960 the recognition that that that still is the best way to live. And that is why Dave is awesome,
00:14:36.840 by the way, because most people cannot separate what they see as their identity or something as
00:14:40.860 personal as sexuality and a union from the kind of objective and logical knowledge of where our
00:14:50.240 rights come from. And that is part of why he can be great to partner with on this because he is still
00:14:56.620 able to see what is true even when we disagree with him on something so fundamental. I absolutely
00:15:01.280 agree. There was a very eclectic, unique coalition formed in 1776. Yeah. I mean, Thomas Paine would
00:15:08.100 have kind of been your secular libertarian of that era. And if there was, if that culture was capable
00:15:14.080 of producing something like that, because it was not a secular culture in any way, he would have been
00:15:18.460 the closest. He would have been far more friendly to notions of the French Revolution, all right, than
00:15:23.420 the American Revolution. He had devout Christians like Patrick Henry, Benjamin Rush, right? You had great
00:15:28.720 thinkers who had a myriad of religious views like Thomas Jefferson. For their era and for the context
00:15:35.820 of the latter 18th century, that was about as diverse and eclectic of a group of thinkers there
00:15:41.340 in Philadelphia that summer that you could possibly amass. And yet they recognized that ultimately there
00:15:48.080 was a law higher than them that they had to appeal to. And they all didn't recognize and agree
00:15:54.580 necessarily why they had to appeal to it. Okay. But they recognized that that law existed. Here's
00:16:00.580 the, here's the advantage they had over us. They weren't better people than us. About a third of the
00:16:05.720 people that signed that document about all men are created equal went home to their slaves. Right. Okay.
00:16:11.320 They had sin. There are founding fathers that are unredeemed, that are in hell as we speak. Okay.
00:16:17.960 There were challenges amongst them. But the, but the thing that the meta challenge they did, they lived
00:16:23.960 in a pre-Darwinian world. So the idea that believing human nature was basically good and progressing
00:16:29.700 to some ultimate good wasn't even on their ideological palette. Right. They would have debated how holy and
00:16:36.760 righteous and involved is God. Right. Is God a kid with an anthill? Deism, basically. Yeah. Is God directly
00:16:42.420 involved the sovereign of the universe? Okay. So they were debating the nature of God, which caused
00:16:47.700 them to lift their character up. Right. We debate the goodness inherently of man, which causes us to
00:16:53.880 drop our integrity and character down. Right. That is the summit that we have to overcome in our era is
00:17:00.520 that level of, of that influence of human nature being basically good. Yeah. Is the biggest challenge
00:17:07.320 that we have to overcome. Gosh, that's so true. And also they all believed in some kind of transcendent
00:17:13.840 authority. Correct. They believed that we came from somewhere, that our rights came from somewhere.
00:17:18.120 They at least believed in providence. That's why they often called God providence. And so that is a
00:17:25.060 debate that is at least contained in some kind of idea of moral order. Today, as you're saying, we have a
00:17:31.820 much more fundamental disagreement. Are we cosmic accidents? Are we created by a God who put us here for a
00:17:37.440 purpose? Who says who we are and why we are here? What right and wrong is? What good and bad is? What
00:17:44.080 good and evil is? They weren't having that fundamental debate then. We are having that fundamental debate
00:17:50.040 today, which is why we are so polarized. Ultimately, it all goes back to a difference in what we believe
00:17:56.720 about human nature, as you said, a difference in what we believe about morality and truth. And that is
00:18:01.700 also a little bit of why I don't fear this kind of broad coalition that you're talking about with people
00:18:07.840 who are just like anti-woke liberals and those of us who are truly conservative. I'm not saying that I fear
00:18:13.780 that, but I am a little bit concerned. Say we push forward together, these people with the different
00:18:19.540 perspectives that are generally against the same things. My question is, are we going to agree on what to
00:18:26.660 build from there? Because I do think some of the people who are anti-woke liberals or they're against
00:18:31.940 critical race theory and DEI and things like that, but they're generally still left wing. At the end of
00:18:37.440 the day, I do think that they kind of hate people like you and me. Like they still think that they're
00:18:42.000 better than people like you and me. They're still a little bit more open. So are we going to agree on
00:18:48.960 what the future really looks like and how to build that and what the foundation is? My fear is that they
00:18:54.260 think that we're just going to be able to go back to 1995. Right. And I just don't think that that's
00:18:59.700 possible. So that's a little bit of my concern. I agree. And, and I also though think we have one
00:19:05.540 fight to fight at a time. The argument you're talking about, I am, I'm looking forward to that
00:19:10.280 argument because now we're having, we're now having an affirmative one. Right. Okay. Now we're on
00:19:15.020 offense. We're now having, now we're against. Yes. We don't want that. We are having the argument
00:19:20.180 about, well, like the founders did. Right. Is God a kid with an anthill? All right. Or is he
00:19:25.660 directly involved in, in, in the sovereign of the universe? We're in an era right now. And what you
00:19:31.060 articulated has been the longstanding challenge on the right. I've often said that the Republican
00:19:36.340 party, for example, is not a big tent. It is a big tarp. And there's a difference. A tent has stakes
00:19:42.000 in the ground so that the center will hold. All right. A tarp is just a temporary covering that you go
00:19:47.140 to, to escape the external conditions. Democrats get elected. Here comes the acid rain. All non
00:19:52.160 communists run under the tarp. Okay. This is why Republicans are, well, they used to be until
00:19:56.680 recently, the greatest minority. I can't even do that right now. The greatest minority party of all
00:20:00.800 time, because everybody was united on that is terrible. And we can't go there. Then Republicans
00:20:06.480 would win and get majorities and they couldn't govern because people did not fully agree on what now to do
00:20:12.140 instead. And so there wasn't a tent, there wasn't stakes holding it in the ground. It was a tarp.
00:20:16.900 And the center then wouldn't hold when, when too many people would get underneath it. So that is a
00:20:21.780 longstanding challenge on the right. The biggest challenge we have right now is cultural survival.
00:20:27.880 Because you used a word a minute ago that I think is very key. And that is transcendence.
00:20:33.600 The founders came out of an era where, um, the, the pagan societies of Europe were still written
00:20:41.720 about in history books. All right. Men like, uh, Boniface, uh, you know, um, evangelizing the
00:20:47.760 Norsemen, St. Patrick evangelizing Ireland. These things were still contemporary history books from
00:20:53.700 the last few centuries in the era in which they lived. They, so, so they understood what paganism
00:20:58.940 was, which was a perversion of transcendence, but an appeal to it nevertheless, but it's a perversion
00:21:04.880 of it, but it's an appeal to it. We are arguing with something today. I would have said 10 years
00:21:09.840 ago, today's progressives are really just, it's just the old paganism rehashed. We're going to go
00:21:14.420 back to a pre Western understanding of the world. Okay. Right. Now we've, we have quickly devolved.
00:21:20.160 It's nihilistic. Now it's demonic. Now what's the difference between pagan and demonic? The pagan
00:21:25.460 understands and recognizes the need for, or the, the, or the worship of transcendence. Again, it's a,
00:21:33.900 it's a, it's a warped perverted version of it, but they, they appeal to it. The nihilist. So you get
00:21:39.580 somebody like Ayn Rand who thought you and I were morons and idiots comes up though with her own
00:21:44.200 philosophy called objectivism because she recognized as a pagan, there need to be something. So, so she's
00:21:49.920 asserting a lot of our, our thoughts from a, from a common grace or natural law perspective. She just
00:21:55.220 called it her own philosophy, right? We're, we're way past Eden. Now we're going, we're, we're way
00:22:00.540 east of Eden. Now we're over the cliff and now we're going straight to the demonic. There is no
00:22:04.680 transcendence. You do you, you determine your own gender. You determine your own identity. You
00:22:09.460 determine your own truth. Ye be like God. We're actually now, we went so far past the past Eden.
00:22:16.120 We're actually now back in the garden, listening to the serpent. We've done an inverted 180 demonically.
00:22:21.440 And that's where we are right now is, is the truth is chloroformed in this culture.
00:22:26.600 Wherever you go, it's a truthless society. And the idea that you would appeal to a unifying truth.
00:22:32.960 I remember when I went back and did the original research I did on masking during COVID at its
00:22:38.000 height. And I found every study that had ever been done on masking since the Spanish flu till about
00:22:42.540 April of 2020 all showed they never work. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm going to go on the
00:22:47.680 air and present these and people, I'm going to, my, my, this is good. People are going to love me for
00:22:52.040 this. I mean, they don't want to wear these things. I'm going to free people. No, I got, except from our
00:22:59.020 own people, I got the exact opposite react. How dare you take my shibboleth away from me? How dare you
00:23:05.520 invade my space, my truth, that there is no jurisdiction beyond your own. That's the language of
00:23:12.540 Lucifer. Isaiah says, I will, quotes the devil and says, I will become like the most high. I will
00:23:18.080 ascend. I will be God. And that is what we have in our culture today. And that is a culture. And when
00:23:23.400 it gets to that point, Allie, it is at the two minute warning of the game. Yep. I wrote about in
00:23:28.940 my book, the exchange of the God of scripture for the God of self. And that's what it is. It's kind of
00:23:35.380 an oxymoron to say self-transcendence, but that is kind of what they believe. Our national symbol
00:23:43.500 used to be a bald eagle. All right. Oxymorons are with no self-awareness whatsoever. That's the
00:23:50.160 national symbol today. Right. Exactly. And it leads to every kind of moral perversion and cultural
00:23:58.220 conflict that we have, this idea of the God of self. I also, I talk about my book that when you
00:24:04.460 worship yourself, of course, you determine your own truth. You believe that you're perfect. Any
00:24:09.020 failures or any flaws that you have are just kind of seen as quirks, or maybe something that you
00:24:13.840 inherited from trauma or because of society or the patriarchy or because of capitalism. But really
00:24:19.500 inside, I mean, you talked about that post-Darwinian idea that we are inherently good and that we can
00:24:24.900 progress towards something better. Women are hearing this every day that if we just, if you dig deep
00:24:30.540 enough inside that that perfect goddess can be manifested and that perfect goddess really believes
00:24:35.920 what your gender is, who you're really supposed to be. I can have Vogue and Proverbs 31 at the same
00:24:40.260 time. Yes. That kind of stuff. Yes. And so it really is dangerous, but it's being packaged,
00:24:44.660 I think, to women in a way that is not really political, but in a way that sounds liberating,
00:24:49.600 that you are, you can become your true self. You can become your own God, but it is just a
00:24:54.320 reiteration of how Satan tempted Eve. You can be like God if you do this. Women are believing the
00:25:01.360 same lie today, but people in general are. I mean, that's how we have gotten to where we are.
00:25:06.440 And the men are back to the garden now. Yeah. I mean, the entire time Eve is being tempted,
00:25:11.660 where is Adam? Yeah. He is right there. Yeah. He has been, he has been bestowed vicar of creation
00:25:19.480 on God's behalf directly by God. Literally like God took a sword. All right. And said, all right,
00:25:24.040 Adam, kneel. All right. Yeah. And knighted him. All right. Vicar of creation. You will rule in my
00:25:29.620 place. You are Lord of this creation. All right. Small L, you will name the animals. I give you
00:25:35.420 dominion. You may now go and subdue it, go fruitful, multiply. You have dominion over this creation.
00:25:41.260 And at any point, does Adam assert that headship while Eve is being tempted? No, he is passive the
00:25:46.780 entire time. And then when his passivity is what ultimately leads to the fall, because he doesn't
00:25:52.080 step in as, as, as God's proxy in this situation, he does not step in. He then turns around and tries
00:25:58.920 to blame the woman for his failure when he is confronted for that passivity by God. Is this
00:26:04.020 not what is playing out in our culture today over and over again, over and over and over again? We,
00:26:09.600 there's nothing new under the sun, Allie. There's just new people under the sun that haven't heard it
00:26:13.420 yet. Yeah. And this is where we can take back to a previous question you, you, you, you gave.
00:26:18.280 This is where we can go to this broader coalition and make our points in a way that they would
00:26:22.900 understand. If I believe human nature is basically good and is therefore progressing to an ultimate
00:26:28.660 good. When I see things in the constitution, like a general welfare clause, I will turn that into a good
00:26:34.960 ideas clause or a best of intentions clause. Right. And I'll just, I'll, I'll greatly expand the
00:26:40.880 definition of that because I'm basically good. So I can decide what general welfare means. I can,
00:26:48.060 I can decide, I can decide how general that welfare should get as opposed to if I admit going in that
00:26:55.820 I am not basically good, there is a God and I am not he, she, or it. I'm not God. Then I will then
00:27:03.800 have a humility that will cause me to wonder what does general welfare clause actually mean? And when the
00:27:09.700 people wrote that phrase, what did they mean it to mean? There's all kinds of things about the
00:27:14.600 constitution that we warp today. Yeah. And that a lot of this broader coalition wants to reign back
00:27:19.620 in, but, but this is where we can provide the context. The reason this needs to be reigned back
00:27:25.060 in is because we are acting as if human nature does not need to be reigned back in. And that is what
00:27:31.200 John Adams meant when he said this constitution is only for a moral and religious people, a people
00:27:36.020 that would recognize there is a God and I am not he, and therefore I should be more humble in the
00:27:42.020 thoughts that I have about how to govern myself.
00:27:55.460 That's the entire basis of self-governance. You can't have self-governance if people are not
00:28:00.260 voluntarily constrained to some kind of transcendent moral order. You need tyranny if people are unable
00:28:07.420 to constrain themselves or be constrained by God. And that is of course where we are headed with the
00:28:13.000 moral anarchy and the chaos that is being waged by the spirit of the age. We are asking for, we're
00:28:19.020 asking for some kind of order. We're asking for the government to tell us what to do, to give us a
00:28:22.600 talisman, like the mask, to show us what virtue is, to give us identity and purpose. That's part of why
00:28:28.500 we are where we are, which is also part of the reason why it is so egregious for people who identify
00:28:34.620 as Republicans to vote to codify something like so-called gay marriage. All right, so now you've
00:28:43.620 abandoned this idea that there is a God who creates truth, who creates order, who creates morality,
00:28:49.700 who gave us our rights, because that God also defined marriages between a man and a woman. So you're
00:28:55.560 actually abandoning him as the authority, which you are abandoning him as the giver of rights, which now,
00:29:00.500 okay, now the government is the giver of rights. So you're basically in the same exact position as a
00:29:05.240 Democrat is. And people don't kind of seem to understand that connection. They think conservatism is just
00:29:10.860 freedom to do whatever you want to. That's not the basis of conservatism or the basis of America. So tell me
00:29:16.360 what it looks like then to kind of build this broad coalition, to have like this kind of big tarp party where
00:29:22.720 you're protecting the anti-communist, but also to call out, you know, the ineffectiveness or the
00:29:28.880 hypocrisy of the Republicans and the conservatives who don't understand the moral order that we're
00:29:34.160 fighting for. Do you think it is like counterproductive to criticize the people that are on our side 80%
00:29:41.960 of the time, but against us 20% of the time?
00:29:44.960 So it depends on what's in that other 20%.
00:29:46.780 Yeah.
00:29:47.300 Okay. I mean, when Reagan famously coined the phrase, you know, 30, 40 years ago, the person
00:29:51.580 who's not my 80% or the person who's my 80% friend is not my 20% enemy. It meant something different
00:29:56.540 because we all understood most of what was going to be in that 20% were not convictions, but positions.
00:30:02.840 It's the, it's the convictions that are in the other 20% now.
00:30:05.920 Yeah.
00:30:06.120 So we have to reject that. I would actually argue, you know, I know I mock it a lot on Twitter,
00:30:10.440 but just as, and I have not been a registered Republican for like eight years. Okay. But
00:30:17.180 when people ask me about a third party, I often will retort, have you tried a second party first?
00:30:22.040 Okay.
00:30:23.060 Instead of the uniparty that we have.
00:30:24.840 Yes. I mean, I, I, I actually would suggest we try a big tent. We have actually not tried it.
00:30:31.060 We have just tried a tarp. We have tried a loose coalition of shared grievances without any actual
00:30:37.460 shared affirmations of what to do when our grievances win the day. What do we do instead?
00:30:42.200 Okay. And, um, and, and so I actually would suggest let's try a tent. We put some stakes in
00:30:48.320 the ground. Okay. You don't necessarily have to, within, there are some things, obviously,
00:30:53.480 if you're into harming children on any level, you're out. Okay. Or innocence on any level,
00:30:58.520 you're out. But within those stakes, if you're willing to live under those stakes,
00:31:04.240 you can have your own different views. You can go your own certain ways. Ultimately there is a
00:31:09.640 jurisdiction. We're not God either. We don't want to create an inquisition. We want a lawful society,
00:31:14.160 not a tyrannical one. Okay. Let's put a few stakes in the ground and say, these are our
00:31:19.380 non-negotiables. Everything else, we're totally fine negotiating with you on. In fact, even if you
00:31:25.060 disagree with us on our non-negotiables, if on our, on a few of our non-negotiables, if you're good on
00:31:30.220 our other non-negotiables, we still have a moral obligation to be, to, to, to stand for those
00:31:35.960 things at the exact same time. Right. So, I mean, even if the, let's go back to the Rubin situation
00:31:41.480 again, and let's say that situation, his, or CPAC, the, you know, let's say, let's say the situation
00:31:49.480 with, but I like using Dave because it makes it personal to our audience. And it also shows them
00:31:53.940 that we're willing to hold ourselves accountable to the way we do everybody else. All right. Let's say
00:31:58.960 the situation with Dave, it deteriorated to the point that there was a separation between him and
00:32:03.400 us, formal, like on a business level, relationship level, it deteriorated at that point. But let's say
00:32:08.980 though, he continued on the path he was on in so many other areas. As believers, we don't have an,
00:32:15.400 we just like, I don't, I can't compromise what I believe to affirm Dave. I can't compromise what I
00:32:22.040 believe to condemn him either. The absolute works both ways. I mean, that's, that's why the Bible
00:32:26.920 refers to itself as a double-edged sword. All right. It's, it's, it's piercing you at the
00:32:31.680 same time. It's piercing internally as it is others externally. One of the things I love about
00:32:36.100 the book of Romans, it's, I think it's the greatest single theological treatise in the
00:32:39.600 history of humanity. It is Paul at his intellectual zenith with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
00:32:44.260 But there, there is a rhythm to it almost like every other or every couple chapters. It's almost
00:32:48.820 like he can sense, yeah, you're getting a little haughty as I'm destroying every argument
00:32:51.740 against Christianity. So I'm going to turn this around on you now, Christian, and see our,
00:32:55.780 you know, like Christ does to his disciples, will you desert me too, right? At the feeding.
00:33:00.660 And, and so even if that, even if it had come to the point of a formal separation, that the
00:33:06.400 relationship was no longer tenable because of this one issue, we would still have a moral
00:33:10.460 obligation to stand with Dave when he was standing with moral righteousness, even if he no longer
00:33:14.660 wanted to fellowship with us. You see what I'm saying? It works both ways. And I think what we
00:33:19.860 don't do well is what I just said, that. All right, we, and so this is where we fray our
00:33:25.780 own coalition. I have no problem saying Donald Trump was a historically good president on
00:33:31.980 immigration, on foreign policy, and on energy. The three things right now that are existentially
00:33:38.200 threatening us as a society and total upheaval. I also have no problem saying he was cosmically
00:33:44.180 bad on COVID, which opened the door for them to take power and then threaten us on these
00:33:49.120 other things. Okay. And so I know a lot of people want to know, are you with me all the
00:33:53.860 time? No. Are you against me all the time? No. And that's a very Christ-like existence.
00:34:00.060 The same Christ who during the day would go and compete, would go in and, and confront
00:34:05.120 Pharisees to their face at the temple. When Nicodemus comes to him as a Pharisee in the dead
00:34:10.080 of the night and has earnest questions to ask and really is a seeker of truth, he doesn't
00:34:15.800 say, Hey, weren't you one of the people that I just, uh, you know, slapped around earlier
00:34:19.220 today? No, he says, come on in. All right. I think that's what we need to do. Well, we
00:34:24.580 need to hold the line at both ends of the line. All right. I will not compromise what I believe
00:34:30.380 to affirm you, but I won't compromise what I believe to condemn you. Russell Moore is no
00:34:36.100 more righteous than Robert Jeffress. They're the same guy. Robert Jeffress turned his church into
00:34:41.080 a shrine to Donald Trump in America. I love America, but I don't go to the church of George
00:34:45.340 Washington and neither did he, by the way. All right. So I'm not an American idolater. I am fine
00:34:51.560 if God judges America and we go away because we deserve it. Blessed the Lord giveth and the Lord
00:34:56.140 taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now I'm not going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy
00:35:00.280 and just say, since we deserve it, I'm not going to engage, you know, like the classic veggie
00:35:04.420 tales where Jonah just grabs the drink and sits by and waits for the sulfur to fall on
00:35:08.800 Nineveh. I'm not going to do that either. Okay. But Russell Moore now saying, well, Trump
00:35:12.700 doesn't deserve credit for appointing the justice of the overturned Roe. That is idolatry.
00:35:16.900 Yeah. All right. Cheeto Jesus doesn't save. Okay. And orange man isn't always bad. These
00:35:21.860 guys are not on the opposite side. Russell Moore and Robert Jeffress are the same guy.
00:35:27.640 Also, Russell Moore, I know this is not really the point of what you're saying. He knows better.
00:35:31.360 He was saying that Alito was a George W. Bush appointee. Okay. We understand that, but it
00:35:36.180 wasn't just him. He's not the only one who wrote the opinion. Obviously the majority is thanks to
00:35:41.300 Donald Trump and whether you like it or not, Mitch McConnell. And how did we get Alito?
00:35:45.280 We got Alito because that was one, that was the first time the Republican base truly rose up in
00:35:49.820 opposition to George W. Bush. He was going to appoint his pal, Harriet Myers to that position
00:35:54.500 instead. That's how we got Alito is the base said, no, no, no. We want somebody who
00:36:00.480 is a certified, no more David suitors, no more stealth candidates. We're never doing this
00:36:05.320 ever again. So even his presentation is deceitful on multiple levels. All right. The same pastor
00:36:13.380 who says, who misinterprets Romans 13 to say, it means we must submit to government no matter
00:36:18.380 what it does to us. It doesn't mean that. That's a heresy. As is Russell Moore though,
00:36:24.400 he's denying Romans 13 when it says, give honor to whom honor is due. Give honor to the public
00:36:29.600 official to whom honor is due. Trump is due honor for appointing those justices. To deny him of that
00:36:36.180 is every bit as heretical as to teach Christians that they are to submit to anything a pagan
00:36:41.120 government commands of them because that's what Romans 13 is saying. That's not what it's saying.
00:36:46.100 Yeah. Yep. That's exactly right. Wow. There's a million other things I could ask you,
00:36:49.820 but we don't really have time. Okay. Where do you think realistically the next 10 years looks like
00:36:55.560 as far as the political and cultural scene? Do you see us pulling the pendulum back? What does it
00:37:02.000 look like 10 years from now? Maybe give us an optimistic and a pessimistic vision or just your
00:37:06.620 realistic one. I really think, and I, and, and, and I don't believe my generation is morally
00:37:14.900 superior to the boomer generation. Yeah. Um, Gen X, Gen X. Yes. But I think whether boomers are
00:37:22.440 willing to accept retirement and allow another generation to take over will be a huge portion
00:37:30.160 of your answer. And here is why. If, if you were, if you're over 50, the minute Vladimir Putin invaded
00:37:38.500 Ukraine and I'm close, I'm close to 50. Okay. The minute Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine,
00:37:42.940 it was 1986 all over again. Okay. Vladimir Putin is a fiend. That's why my parents' neighborhood,
00:37:49.400 which I'm sure is filled with boomer Republicans, has Ukrainian flags everywhere. It's 1987 all over
00:37:54.440 again. It's 19 and you can't see, you don't know what time it is anymore. It's the same time it always
00:38:00.180 was. And, and that's where we have to be sons of Issachar, men who came to King David, who understood
00:38:05.060 the times and what to do about them. Every generation has, has a tap out moment when it's your turn,
00:38:10.520 you guys had a great run and it's time to move on. The idea that we just, there's no more silent
00:38:15.880 majority anymore and the country can't afford our silence any longer. We got to be loud. Right. Okay.
00:38:19.920 So get out of the idea of a silent majority. I'm just going to sit around and watch Fox news all day
00:38:24.120 long and all night long. And then I'll wait and vote Republican to save me. The red wave. There are
00:38:29.540 some of our, some of our boomer friends, God bless them. They're going to be in camps with their grandkids,
00:38:34.880 but there'll be patting them on the head saying, I'm telling you, the red waves coming to save us any day
00:38:38.780 now. We have to, we need a generational change over so that our tactics and perspectives are
00:38:45.200 refreshed. All right. We've got even people within our own network saying you hate America. If you
00:38:50.380 don't want to dump another a hundred billion dollars down the Ukraine rat hole, all we've done is
00:38:54.700 enrich Vladimir Putin. His country is wealthier than it's been in eight years. He has more prestige on
00:38:59.700 the world stage. Everything he wanted to happen has occurred and we've crippled ourselves. But again,
00:39:05.500 if it's, if it's 1987 and I'm still watching Rocky four, if eyes can change, the news can change.
00:39:10.600 If we're, if I'm still watching Rocky four, I don't see that. We've, we have to move on and see
00:39:15.480 the era, not for the era that we thought it was, or it used to be for what it actually is. That's
00:39:21.580 where I think, you know, everybody's tried to solve the riddle of Ron DeSantis. Yeah. Where does this
00:39:26.540 guy with this, did he get, you know, testicular fortitude injections? What is he? Did he, I mean,
00:39:33.000 who does his Bible studies? Where does it really come from? You know, I really think a lot of it
00:39:36.780 is just a basic craven understanding from, because a guy from another generation who's like, he's like
00:39:42.220 42. Yeah. He's like, we got to like a slap, we got to start knocking some skulls. Yeah. We're post
00:39:47.260 argument here. We're not arguing with these people anymore. We have to confront them. And I think if you
00:39:51.600 are just in an era where we, before we were post argument, you're having a hard time adjusting
00:39:56.900 your, and it doesn't mean you're bad. It just means every generation has a tap out moment. Yeah. And
00:40:02.400 I think our ability to, to aggressively, but successfully confront this will largely be
00:40:08.240 determined by whether the generation that has shown it cannot do it or doesn't understand how to do it
00:40:13.320 will move aside so that a generation that's at least willing to try it will then step into that void.
00:40:21.600 Every audience that I talked to, I just talked to Moms for Liberty a little bit ago,
00:40:34.600 and they're an organization started last year, 37,000 members now because of-
00:40:39.900 I see all their stuff on social, man. They're awesome.
00:40:41.720 I mean, they raise a respectful ruckus and I gave basically like a rallying cry speech to them.
00:40:47.620 And it's so interesting how much this resonates to people today saying things,
00:40:51.760 which I absolutely believe is true. Like anyone who stands between us and our children,
00:40:56.620 we will remove from power. We will strip them of their authority and their titles and their
00:41:01.500 self-importance. And there is nothing that can stand in our way. And we are pushing back and we
00:41:05.800 are fighting back and we're not going to stop. We're not going to stop. People want that. They want
00:41:10.980 people to fight back. That's why they like Ron DeSantis, because he is going on the offense.
00:41:15.520 And I know a lot of boomer Republicans may seem uncomfortable with that, but I also know boomer
00:41:20.140 Republicans who are for it. They like Donald Trump because of that. They like Ron DeSantis and they're
00:41:25.600 like, you know what? I am tired of this. They've got their grandkids and they're saying, hmm, I also
00:41:30.360 don't want my granddaughter to have a chest binder or my grandson to be castrated. And so it's possible
00:41:39.540 also for that generation to wake up. But I agree with you that the leadership does not come from
00:41:45.000 the 70 and 80 year olds. It was never meant to, by the way. It was never meant to. It'll be a major
00:41:50.660 surprise if it's Gen X that is like leading the way because you guys are sometimes the forgotten
00:41:57.000 generation.
00:41:57.160 We are. Because we were just chill, man. We just sat around in our flannel listening. When we went
00:42:02.520 to college, you got Pearl Jam's 10 and Nirvana's Nevermind as your orientation packet, man. You just
00:42:07.000 sat around, you chilled out.
00:42:08.440 You know, it gave us a lot of good music. So I'm thankful for that.
00:42:10.260 That is true. So did the boomers, by the way.
00:42:12.080 So did the boomers.
00:42:12.580 Maybe the best era of music, if we're being honest.
00:42:14.500 So did the boomers. But millennials are to think for Justin Bieber and can really anything surpass that.
00:42:20.220 I don't know. And Taylor Swift.
00:42:21.720 No comment. I've already offended the older generation. I'm going to have the younger one try to like
00:42:26.080 me as long as I can.
00:42:26.880 No, I'm just kidding. I'm with you on the 70s to 90s music. That's almost everything that we
00:42:30.920 listen to in our house. So I'm with you there. And I am for your, I don't know if I can call it
00:42:36.580 an optimistic vision of the future, but it's an empowering one. And I think that's how a lot of
00:42:41.660 people feel right now. Yes, we believe that Jesus is coming back no matter your eschatology,
00:42:46.980 but that does not mean that we sit in our hands and wait. That's not why we're here.
00:42:51.120 So thank you for that. Thank you for the rallying cry. Tell everyone where they can find you.
00:42:55.080 Tell them about any projects that you've got, your new movie, the many, many books that you've
00:42:58.900 written, all that. Yeah, we've got. So I don't know when, when can I ask, when is this going to
00:43:03.320 run? Because that will determine what I say next. We do not know. Okay. So we are finishing right now
00:43:09.980 a movie based on my 2016 book, Nefarious Plot. We're in final post-production.
00:43:14.720 What's it about? It is actually the story leading up to the book, which is about
00:43:19.320 a demonic takeover of America. It's screw tape letters, but not about the individual
00:43:23.860 takedown demonically, but a cultural one by a demon general from hell named Lord Nefarious.
00:43:29.360 And in our movie, you will learn where Lord Nefarious comes from, where the book manuscript
00:43:33.660 comes from. It's kind of a prequel that leads right into the book. All right. And so we're finishing
00:43:39.060 the post-production on that right now. And then we'll begin working on distribution for the film.
00:43:43.740 We had several major studios offer us distribution deals, but we decided we wanted to finish the movie
00:43:49.220 first because they might try to exert some kind of control over the content if we sign the deal
00:43:54.820 before the movie was done. So we're very pleased with that footage though. This will not be your
00:44:00.460 grandmother's Christian movie. Yeah. Okay. This is going to be, and you might be too young to remember
00:44:04.840 these days, but this would be like if you grew up reading the Frank Peretti novels, which an evangelical
00:44:09.780 subculture, that was the horror stuff your parents let you read. All right. Imagine a
00:44:13.720 Frank Peretti book. You can't, you can't read Harry Potter, but here. Yes. Yeah. But here,
00:44:17.880 read the real stuff about demons taking over. Yes. Uh, but, uh, this is like if a Frank Peretti novel,
00:44:23.480 uh, was, was, was written into a film and that's what this will be. Yeah. And I think it's going to
00:44:30.240 be, it'll be very faith-based, but it'll be very aggressive. Well, I must've missed, um, the casting
00:44:35.380 call for that. I know that you've seen my acting abilities with Elizabeth Warren. I got to tell you,
00:44:39.940 next movie that you make, I'm here. I'm ready. I'm ready for auditions. I'm glad you brought
00:44:44.100 that up sister. Cause that was not a parody. That was an impersonation. I was like, I hope
00:44:50.040 you don't move to a cul-de-sac and buy a Subaru anytime soon. After I saw that you, that was too
00:44:56.020 scary of a, of the neighborhood, Karen. I, I kind of got a little freaked out watching that actually.
00:45:00.580 Yeah. Well, unfortunately I know, I know a few and I just, I just had that. I had that wig already
00:45:07.060 and it was just perfect and ready to go. So, well, thank you, Steve so much. I encourage everyone to
00:45:11.680 listen to your podcast. Your podcast is one that you don't just get informed. There are a lot of
00:45:15.820 podcasts you can listen to and get informed, but there are a few podcasts that actually make you
00:45:20.560 smarter and that is yours. So thank you. That's like the best compliment you could give me. I
00:45:24.420 appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yep. Thanks so much.
00:45:30.580 Thank you.