Ep 920 ｜ Russell Moore, David French & the Fake Threat of Christian Nationalism ｜ Guest： John Cooper
Episode Stats
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Summary
John Cooper of Skillet is here to talk about his new book, Wimpy weak and woke, and the documentary The Threat of Christian nationalism. He also gives his reaction to the film, Christian nationalism, and whether Christian nationalism is really a threat to democracy.
Transcript
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john cooper of skillet is here today to talk about his new book wimpy weak and woke and we are also
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going to talk about the documentary that has uh been circulating twitter about the threat of
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christian nationalism john is going to give his reaction uh his response on whether christian
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nationalism is really the threat to democracy that we are hearing it is we're going to talk
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about that and a lot more you're going to love love love this conversation it's really powerful
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what he's got to say and this episode is brought to you by our friends at good ranchers go to
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good ranchers.com use code ally for a discount that's good ranchers.com code ally
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john cooper thanks so much for taking the time to be here you know i'm excited to be here i'm pumped
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up yeah i know you're always pumped up that's what i love about that i am usually always pumped up but
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i'm extra i'm extra excited as my granddad would say i'm extra excited today extra excited well
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thanks so much for bringing the excitement and the uh your pumped up attitude to really we need it
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because there's a lot going on and there's a lot to kind of make us a little sad a little scared about
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the state of the world and that's why we're going to talk about your book we're going to talk about
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lots of things wimpy weak and woke how truth can save america from utopian destruction whoa
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that seems like exactly what we need to hear because gosh my goodness there's a lot of chaos
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weighing us down so tell us just a little bit about this book why'd you write it yeah you know there is a
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lot of chaos i mean i've never seen chaos like this 2020 hit and my whole world like shattered i was
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like no no this could never happen in america nobody would ever agree to lock down in your house for
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basically indefinite periods of time what really shocked me was the response of christianity and
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and obviously that's something you i know you talk a lot about we agree on i never expected christians
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to just be like yeah that's fine we won't go to church and forever and then to not make it not
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make noise i remember when when all this stuff started happening they were opening strip clubs
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or opening casinos you've got weed stores open liquor stores i was just like what i'm going to
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church you know and i remember when i got really loud about it was because i in 2020 i had a friend
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that had gone to church with me she went progressive uh meaning towards progressive christianity
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sort of half deconverted her faith but still yells at christians about what jesus is really like even
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though she clearly doesn't know christ but anyway that's beyond the point and so she was on social
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media she was yelling at people for wanting to open churches and literally five days later on her
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social media she's on um at a at a blm rally outside there must have been 10 000 people no mask and she
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was like this is what it truly means to stand up you know for for god and to do what's right and i was
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like i am not letting these people bully me anymore these people um are not they're not using good faith
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these are not good faith arguments so the reason i wrote wimpy weak and woke is i truly believe
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no alarmism i really believe we are on the precipice of the end of western civilization and and i don't mean
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that like everybody freak out and we have no hope people who know jesus we have all the hope in the
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world so i'm an optimist but i'm also going to just being clear we're on the precipice of the end of
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western civilization and things are going to get really really bad if we don't begin to wake up and
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realize how wonderful it is to have liberty in the church i believe that the church would just act like
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the church i think this thing would turn around like that i think it would happen so fast yeah but
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the church is going to have to wake up unfortunately a lot of the big eva elites we call them big eva
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elites or or the institutional elites the people that write for new york times the christian leaders
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who write for new york times or whatever a lot of them are also they're on the same bandwagon
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they're driving the bus off the cliff towards utopia and they don't know that there's no such thing
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as utopia they're going to fall off the cliff and uh it's not going to be good
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yeah you know you're talking about christian leaders who supported shutting down churches
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i remember andy stanley he gave an of course virtual uh speech for liberty university during
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covid and he said you know some people are saying that jesus calls the church to meet
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no he doesn't and literally he said explicitly that the church isn't necessarily called to meet
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physically if anyone doubts this they can go look it up it's out there the transcript
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the video is all out there so here we have a very prominent a very influential leader within
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evangelical christianity telling christians that you are not commanded to meet together which of
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course we are commanded to meet together uh do not neglect meeting together as is the habit of some
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is explicitly what we're told so of course there are going to be christians who say well andy stanley
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knows better than i do these leaders know better than i do shouldn't i just listen to them
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shouldn't i just hole up in my house isn't that the loving thing to do so it put the church in a
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really tough and cowardly spot yeah i think that was what was so difficult about 2020 we kind of
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thought that everybody agreed on all the stuff all of us christians we pretty much agree on a lot of
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this and all of a sudden our world got shattered and all of a sudden even within families you're going
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wait a minute we don't we don't agree on this now i'm i'm literally not being like jesus because i
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want to go to a church meeting i'm not being like jesus because i don't support the blm rallies because
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i i know it's not actually about caring for for black people i know that i've read it it's not so now i'm
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not being like jesus there's two different ways to go about this i wouldn't mind mentioning it let's
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talk to people who who aren't christians for a second one way to talk about it is this these christian
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leaders hurt us so much we're not even talking about the christianity side everybody agrees now
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even a lot of my progressive friends agree they wouldn't change anything but they they go okay
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the lockdowns really hurt kids they would agree with that it did hurt they wouldn't change it because
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we were trying we're trying to help people you know but what these christian leaders did was a
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they actually hurt people it does it's not good for human beings to be locked in your house
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for six months it's not actually good and they should they should know that it hurt kids it's
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not good for your spiritual health or your mental health to not be around other people so it it
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clearly didn't work on a natural level then when you look at the christian side what is really sad
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about it is you just have people that they're they have these agendas and these ideologies this is
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what critical theory has done to christianity they have an ideological ends in their mind and then
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they go back and they try to find a proof text from the bible for that ideological ends but because
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they go that's what the world wants that's what being a good witness is to them being a good witness
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for jesus means saying what is it that you guys want me to say and i want you to know that i'm a good
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person that i'm a loving person i'll say anything i need to say so that you think that and that makes me
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a good witness so it's actually the inverse of what the church is called to do we're supposed
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to be a prophetic witness to speak truth to the culture i mean jesus said the world hates me because
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i testify that its works are evil i think what we're witnessing here in evangelicalism is basically
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this here's the short version of it they want to create a new kind of christianity that makes the
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world not hate us so much period yeah that's it it's pretty simple actually yeah and kova definitely
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revealed that with the dividing lines there of not just hey i think that you're wrong scientifically for
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not getting the vaccine but i think that you are not a christian we were told if you don't get the
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vaccine and then um that was exacerbated or maybe we were presented with new dividing lines during the
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summer of the riots after george floyd and so tell us how that then played a role into what you're
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talking about the push for a new kind of neutered christianity that just goes along with what the
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world calls justice and what the world calls truth and what the world calls morality yeah you know i think
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what's happened is this so probably most people listening to the show are going to know a lot of this
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but but i think i can say it in a simple way so the anti-christian movement is really the same thing
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as the anti-western civilization movement so it's sort of like when uh october 7th the israel massacre
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happens you've got college kids supporting actually cheering on hamas it was kind of a little shocking
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very but but because i've been doing so much research i was like that's not shocking at all that
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totally makes sense because the the movement to destroy america to destroy western civilization
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at its root is against christianity and what i think that some some people don't understand
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is that they're not against us because we believe that jesus is god they don't really care if you
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believe that jesus is god there's a quote in my book uh from nietzsche i'm not going to have say the
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quote word for words to paraphrase but nietzsche is basically like this he basically says we've been
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attacking christianity in all the wrong ways it doesn't matter if you believe a proposition that
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jesus is god or died on a cross or rose from the dead that doesn't matter we have to attack christianity
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at its moral foundations it's the morality of christianity that is ruining people's lives
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according to nietzsche and according to the post-moderns and according to the to the critical
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theorists and marx it's the morals that you have to do i don't you can believe in jesus you can
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believe in little fairies you can believe in aliens that came here and built the pyramids we don't
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really care what you believe as long as you don't step on my moral situation i got going on here and
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so because that has become so popular the church is then trying to say oh my gosh how are we going
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to synthesize this new worldview into christianity and that's why they took the social justice stuff
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they took it in and they they feel these words are like full of so much semantic overload they meet
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racism systemic racism the oppressed the marginalized and they they use them in any way they need to use
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them to show the world we're on your side we love you and what you end up doing is supporting
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massive amounts of injustice in the name of christ it's actually a really terrible thing then something
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really bad happens here's a good example my friend that i told you that was uh doing the post that
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was at the blm rally actually lives in minneapolis and um was supporting the defund the police movement
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in minneapolis i spoke out about the defund the police movement my friend who's now kind of a
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deconverted from progressive christianity whatever you want to call her is telling me that i'm not being
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a good witness for jesus because i'm not standing up for the marginalized i tell her you're doing this
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defund the police thing this is going to hurt the people you say you care about this is going to hurt
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poor people it's going to hurt people in marginalized communities it's going to hurt people of color here
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we are all these years later and as you know it is it's i've been like a 39 percent increase in
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homicides in that city since they defunded and and changed policing and you have no cash bail and all
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these various policies it's hurt the very people they said they wanted to help but and i tell her
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you stood up for this you're the one that did injustice i'm the one that stood up for justice
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and was called a racist for doing it this is what the church needs to understand the world may like you
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but you're standing up for something really evil that does not make you a good christian
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i think it was thomas soul who said and again i'm i'm paraphrasing too that progressives are always
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judged by their intentions not by their outcomes and so you said that your friend or that people
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who advocated for shutting down during covid that even if they say okay the outcomes are different than
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what we thought yeah kids have gone back like to grade levels we've got all these mental spiritual
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physical health problems but we had the right intentions and even people who now see that the
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vaccine has had some adverse outcomes for people will say well i still am glad i pushed for it i'm
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still glad i pushed for the mandates because my intention was good and it doesn't matter what the outcome
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is but that's not how we should think as christians as people who love our neighbors and have been
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placed in this in this nation providentially to make it better and to make it good and safer more
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beautiful for the people that we uh live near we have to care about the outcomes we have to care about
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the stats of what you're talking about that even if the intentions behind defunding the police were
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good which i'm not sure that they were but even if they were the outcomes have have have been
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devastating for image bearers yes that's what christians have to care about right absolutely
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you know one of the things i wrote about in the book say um that the subtitle is how truth can save
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america from utopian destruction oh this is going to be good ali listen to this i'm right that so many
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of our christian leaders have shown themselves to be men of utopia disguised as men of the kingdom
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yeah so what has happened is is the world is full-on secular humanists and and so the easiest way to
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just say this for anybody doesn't know secular humanism just teaches that we can we don't need
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god for a basis for morality for how to build a perfect society or a just society we don't need god
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we don't need all these extra human ideas like the 10 commandments we can do that on our own
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that idea has infiltrated the christian church at the at the top levels to the point that the secular
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humanists are trying to build utopia they're going to build the perfect world of equity as we all hear
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everybody has the same stuff yeah equity of outcomes and the christian leadership doesn't have either the
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stones or the maybe biblical understanding anymore i don't know what's going on but they don't have what
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it takes let's say it's a nicer way the kahunas they don't have the the kahunas to say that is
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absolutely not going to work it's going to lead to destruction you can't do it because then they go
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well they then they'll think i'm a bad person and we can't have them thinking i'm a bad person so it's
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the fear of man coming in so what has happened is the church is joining with the world to try to build
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these secular utopias it's the same reason that no matter how many times you say to somebody
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socialism doesn't work communism doesn't work we're talking about 120 million deaths in the last
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century from marxist enterprises you'll never meet a leftist that will say yeah it's really not good
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they'll all say it hasn't really been tried yet they don't they don't apologize they don't repent
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they don't go all right that was terrible terrible ideas they just go no it just needs to be tweaked
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right you know it's like it's like building the uh the spacex you know yeah thing that goes up and
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it explodes they go no no we knew it was going to explode we got to tweak a little something well
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these people don't mind when these things explode and death and murder and mayhem it should be the
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church saying that's because the bible shows us a better way one of the things i write in the book
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is that i think there's a real mistake in the 90s if i've understood when it happened the 90s
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the evangelical church just decided to stop teaching worldview and so we just said hey
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here's a here's the whole pie of life and we're going to teach a little sliver one tiny sliver it's
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that big right there and this is jesus death resurrection uh ascension which of course is the
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most important thing that's ever happening in history we know this definitely most important thing
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but there are other things that we have to deal with because we are living in a body
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i am married i need to know how to treat my wife i need to know how to raise my kids i need to know
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what kind of schools they should go to or what i should teach there's a lot of stuff we got to do
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and they said no no no not talking about anybody any of those things we will only talk about this
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the bible gives us these answers and the world gives us all the other answers all of it and so the
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new christian principle was how do we join together with the world because we pretty much all want the
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same thing and they're wrong we really don't want the same thing yeah you're right and going back to
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what you said about this idea that well even though our ideas have led to these devastating destructive
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outcomes they just need to be tweaked kind of another excuse that i hear is well it's really
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because all of you christian nationalist bigots are standing in the way you're the reason that we don't
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have peace you're the reason that utopia has not been reached which by the way utopia means
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nowhere and so that's your point is really poignant that they're pie in the sky ideas of like how we
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can get to if all the opposition just gets out of the way and they're able to perfectly turn the knobs
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to socially engineer everyone to comply with their grand cosmic vision of equal outcomes like it really
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is not only destructive but it is completely nonsensical it's against human nature that's why it doesn't work
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communism is against human nature progressivism is against human nature um and so i kind of lost my
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train of thought but i think where i am trying to go with that is that we have been we've created this
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kind of like boogeyman of christians and christian nationalism and we're told that if we just stop
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trying to influence culture then finally that utopia will be reached yes um and there's a documentary
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i'm sure you've seen it yeah that's out there with russell moore and david french you're they're like
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your favorite people right like you're there you're their biggest fans is that these people definitely on
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my chopping block there's no there's no question about that yeah and uh andrew whitehead who has written
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a lot of books or a couple books about christian nationalism it's a documentary about how christian
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nationalism is really really really scary and the cause of all of our problems so let's play the clip
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from the documentary and then i'll get your reaction to it we can talk about it they're told over and over
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and over again that you're in danger you need to fight if you don't want to lose your country we are
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in a civil war between good and evil this is not a movement about christian values this is about christian
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power what happens to the people who don't believe this stuff we are on the precipice god is on our
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side we're taking our nation back the thing that keeps me up at night is that we lose democracy
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okay john what do you think what do you think about that it just makes my blood boil honestly
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i saw i was like yeah we knew this was coming they've been ramping this christian nationalism
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thing up i mean i hate that i always have to give caveats i hate nuanced caveats but if you don't
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look are there are there some people out there that that are very confused about things like
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uh jesus is my god and trump is his prophet trump is at the right hand of the father of course there
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are some people like that i don't think there's that many i've never met them i've seen them on the
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internet i don't think they have much power i i don't sure that's not good that's called idolatry
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it's not a good thing yeah um of course but this christian nationalism thing is just it is so
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absolutely ridiculous so i think i just want to say it like this if i can because i'm guessing a lot
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of people watching your show are just like me when i watch your show and in shows like this i'm like
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what happens when i watch this is i'm i go man am i a christian nationalist am i am i doing something
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wrong am i hurting people am i trying to you start asking yourself these questions and the answer is
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no it's ridiculous it's a complete sham when they say christian nationalists speaking of semantic
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overload it's a word that can mean like a billion different things they use it any way they need to
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use it to win but really what they mean is christian conservative that's it but that's what
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they mean if you think that abortion is wrong and you think that abortion should be illegal you're a
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christian nationalist there there's no like other category of person i will i think it should be
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illegal but i'm not a christian nationalist they're going to call you a christian nationalist
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people also need to understand is i've read all their books the woman that was on there the woman
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that came on instead of trying to enter democracy um she's called anthea butler she has a book called
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white evangelical racism in the book it's really clear it's obvious i'm not making it up i wrote
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actually i quoted her in my book funny thing is i quoted most of those people on the trailer in my book
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i am white evangelical racism is the same thing as christian nationalism white evangelical racism is the
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same thing as the white church the white church they call it because it's an idea it's not just that
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you have white skin and you happen to be a sociological group of white people that go to church
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it's an idea that is of domination imperialism colonialism white supremacy is baked into the cake
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we have distorted christianity in her words and all the people that believe this we call it orthodox
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christianity but what we call orthodox christianity they say is a bastardized version of christianity
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that has white supremacy injected into it and so even anthea butler even chastised people need
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to understand nearly everybody on that thing that calls themselves a christian nearly all of them
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are either pro-choice some of them are pro-abortion there's a difference there most of them are also
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pro-affirming lgbt affirming as well anthea butler's pro pro-choice pro-affirming she thinks
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it's wrong that churches are not affirming of lgbt she chastises she's black the what she calls the
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black church for being let's see for for um exhibiting white evangelical racism you got to keep up with this
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so the black church exhibits white evangelical racism because the black church is largely not
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lgbt affirming yeah so all these things are tied together bad is because of white is because of
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whiteness and that is that critical theory premise that black and brown oppressed white oppressor and
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if that's the lens that you're looking at the world then you fit everything into that paradigm yes and and
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what it means to be christian in her view is to be basically precisely aligned with the progressive
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uh political party so what's really ironic is that these people are hyper political yeah calling
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us to political i actually wrote this i took a photo of the book i gave you yeah i wouldn't mind reading
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this from the end of my book yes i say i'm talking about the progressives these people exactly these
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people we just watched for them the gospel of the kingdom demands communal political activism this is
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ironic because the christian woke call people like me a christian nationalist even though my message is
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one of limited government and they belief in individual liberties i am not a christian nationalist
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but they are certainly christian statist yeah this is the irony is that people like us we're like i don't want
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to dominate anybody i let's ask this what did trump crack down on free speech or was that biden that
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crack down on free speech did trump you know start hurting people's um religious freedoms or was it
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the biden administration that set 25 swat arm swat people to a pro-life activist house 25 full gear
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tactical weapons to a pro-lifer's house so the things they accuse of us of they are actually doing they are
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actually more political than we are because your typical christian conservative is sort of like
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i don't really care about politics i just think killing innocent children is so evil
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and now the whole the whole transgender ideology it is just so evil i feel like i got to stand against
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that that's where your typical christian conservative lands and what they are trying to do
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is trying to guilt you into not being that person so you can be viewed as one of the good people
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they're trying to conflate all conservative christians who like you said are just they're
00:26:06.200
just pro-life and they don't believe in defunding the police and they don't believe in you know that
00:26:11.760
boys can become girls and and vice versa they're trying to conflate that person with everyone who
00:26:18.180
stormed the capitol on january 6th they're saying that is one in the same and again just to like
00:26:24.540
offer caveats which we shouldn't even have to at this point of course i don't support any violence
00:26:29.780
where i probably don't agree with any of the people that we saw in that clip like theologically
00:26:35.520
the conflation of or the belief that america is god's chosen country that americans are god's chosen
00:26:43.420
people and so sure yeah we can denounce that or disagree with that or whatever what i take issue
00:26:49.900
with is the argument that seems to be the point of this documentary that you are an evil christian
00:26:56.200
nationalist fascist racist all of those things if you allow your worldview to inform your vote to inform
00:27:04.120
what you think about political issues apparently christian conservatives are the only people in the
00:27:09.400
country who are not allowed to bring our worldview to the voting booth an atheist can do that an agnostic
00:27:16.100
can do that a muslim can do that that's all fine because you have to by the way everyone votes in
00:27:21.880
accordance with their worldview everyone does that is normal that is right that's our responsibility that
00:27:27.400
actually is what a democracy is a representative democracy we all take our best arguments according to
00:27:34.060
our faith in our worldview to the voting booth but they're saying the only way to be a good christian
00:27:40.400
is to not do that the only way to be a good christian is to actually vote against what you
00:27:46.620
believe so sure you can be personally pro-life but to be a good christian you'll vote for the slaughter of
00:27:52.580
babies you can be personally against transgenderism but you have to vote for boys to be able to go
00:27:58.460
into girls bathrooms so you cannot allow your worldview to enter the public space at all if you are a christian
00:28:06.500
or else you are a fascist and i agree with you we've just got to reject that you don't have to give into
00:28:12.460
that accusation all you know that's not true you should show up on voting day with your full world view
00:28:20.040
influencing the decisions that you make because that's how christians are called to live
00:28:26.500
well the funny thing is is that they in some cases they sort of agree with that they say yeah
00:28:32.020
that's right but you're not being a true christian so that that here's what's ironic in other words
00:28:37.360
how come they never get called christian nationalists because they're all saying the bible says that this is
00:28:42.980
what we're supposed to do so how come stacy abrams can say i used to be pro-life but after becoming a
00:28:51.120
christian and reading the bible i became pro-choice understanding that god wants me
00:28:56.380
how come she can say that and not be called a christian nationalist right how come president
00:29:00.100
biden can chastise florida for disallowing minor uh trans surgeries and say this is what do you say
00:29:08.680
it's almost sinful what you're doing because all of these young people are made in the image of god
00:29:13.800
how can he say the image of god he's a president church and state there's a wall between church and
00:29:19.300
state and he's quoting the bible how come pete buddige can constantly quote the bible the only person
00:29:25.440
in politics that quotes the bible as much as pete buddige is uh mike huckabee yeah yeah right he
00:29:31.320
quotes the bible all the time i've never seen anybody say separation of church and state um so
00:29:36.960
all of these people that we see on this clip are acting like in this utopian impulse that says
00:29:43.580
we have to love globalism we have to love pluralism we have to love multiculturalism and and we're all
00:29:51.800
going to live together no one ever says anything about what anybody else does it was david french
00:29:56.540
who was on the documentary of course david french who calls himself a christian conservative is the
00:30:02.820
one who calls drag queen story hour a quote blessing of liberty he calls it now to be fair to david french
00:30:09.860
because i don't lie about people like these folks on here do is he doesn't like drag queen story
00:30:14.920
hour but if you ali say guys i don't think in the public library we should allow men dress up in
00:30:26.160
women's lingerie come in and read stories to our little children here in my little town of wherever
00:30:33.500
you live i think we should do something about this issue of public morality by the way i have lots of
00:30:39.040
non-christian friends who are against drag queen story hour you don't have to be a christian
00:30:43.800
nationalist to feel that way and our tax dollars paying for it by the way by the way we're paying
00:30:48.680
a lot of money and we're shipping it out we're shipping it overseas as well we're shipping the
00:30:53.140
drag queen stuff all these other countries so we can so basically so we can colonize them i don't
00:30:58.840
know to use one of the left's words that's another thing that's okay if you're a progressive if you're
00:31:02.360
a progressive you can go tell you gondo what to do if you are telling them that they need to allow
00:31:09.040
export christianity exactly right and and and and it's even better if you tell them they need
00:31:14.840
gay marriage but you say the bible condones it then you're like a superhero to these people it's
00:31:19.400
insane so the the point is is that david french says ali if you and your friends want to boycott
00:31:26.120
this drag queen story hour you are being oppressive you are bringing you are dominating people you're
00:31:31.440
trying to ruin democracy and the truth is is that when most of these people say we're taking our
00:31:36.500
country back for god they don't even mean it in the sense of because we're the new israel we're now
00:31:43.060
god's chosen nation that's not what they're saying they're just merely saying there was a time when god
00:31:49.180
was honored in this country a lot more than he is now there was a time that men whether they knew
00:31:56.120
jesus christ personally where they had a personal relationship with jesus christ that they had a
00:32:01.120
sort of a fear and honor of those things that mattered and they stood up for biblical values
00:32:07.720
nobody can argue against that that that is the way it is so most of the people that say those kind
00:32:12.520
of things that's what that's really all that they mean yeah man it's hard for me to understand
00:32:18.460
well that's me being gracious i think we both really understand what's going on here but how
00:32:24.580
so much attention can be placed on the problem of what i think is a tiny tiny minority of christian
00:32:31.580
conservatives who would say things like oh you know trump is my prophet or this is god's new israel or
00:32:39.280
whatever um versus the pervasive stronghold or the very powerful stronghold rather and the pervasive
00:32:47.440
influence of progressivism you've given a lot of really good examples but when i think about
00:32:53.540
the problems facing our nation the rampant abortion just the bloodlust that we see from the pro-abortion
00:33:00.720
activists now the butchering of children's bodies who say that they're confused about their gender the
00:33:06.360
policing of our speech when it comes to gender being forced to say that a man is a she and and vice versa
00:33:13.440
the problem we are talking about off camera of the rise in murders and violence in these progressive
00:33:19.000
cities just the destruction of these progressive cities because of these policies like that is what
00:33:25.560
is destroying the country that is what is endangering people's lives that is what is primarily harming the
00:33:33.340
imago dei and it's so obvious like it's so painfully obvious the destructive outcomes of these progressive
00:33:39.420
policies and it's so much more rampant it's so much more powerful and influential progressivism is and
00:33:46.700
yet we're told that the real problem the real danger is that some random people on the internet think that
00:33:53.720
trump is god's prophet like it's not even close if you're looking at the level of influence that each
00:34:01.260
ideology has absolutely you know i think it would be a great time so i was i was looking for this bible
00:34:07.100
verse if i can find it um do you mind if i read you a bible verse real fast please i bet you'd love
00:34:13.180
it i would love it all right this is this is it um uh ezekiel nine verse three through four um the glory
00:34:23.460
of the uh sorry my eyes then the glory of the god of israel rose from above the cherub where it had been
00:34:28.760
to the threshold of the temple called the man clothed in linen and carrying writing equipment here's
00:34:33.680
what i want to read passed throughout the city of jerusalem the lord said to him and put a mark on
00:34:39.240
the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the detestable practices committed in it the
00:34:48.560
reason i want to say that is because the thing that saddens me this is the reason i wrote wimpy
00:34:53.540
weak and woke and i'd like to just give the definition of those words real quick the reason
00:34:57.740
it saddens me so much what i see a lot of these christian leaders doing the people are watching
00:35:02.940
they are angry at people like me and you that we are sighing and groaning at the detestable
00:35:11.080
wicked acts that we see i used to feel about abortion i used to be like well of course i'm
00:35:17.420
pro-life but it's not like i spend time caring that it's not like i'm that sad about it again it's a
00:35:22.320
fact of life once you start looking into it and once you start finding out um that the majority
00:35:29.220
of women who have abortions already have at least one living child which means they already know what
00:35:36.320
the process is like they already understand that this is a baby once you start understanding that
00:35:41.560
people love they actually love this practice there's also about 43 percent of abortions in 2021
00:35:49.560
were repeat customers these are people who've already had one abortion so the idea that these
00:35:55.320
are people just don't understand what it is or it's just not true there's about 3.3 million babies born
00:36:03.380
in america per year if you have 800 000 killed you're talking about 25 percent of the babies a year
00:36:14.100
slaughtered how is this different than than the in the old testament times right when they it's not
00:36:22.020
they are upset when we sigh and groan about this evil and they want to say ali calm down stop telling the
00:36:39.960
world that it's all that bad it's not that bad it is that bad and so this is what wimpy weak and woke
00:36:46.200
is all about can i do i have time to define what that means yes please because some people went total
00:36:51.200
apoplectic rage over the name christians it's so mean for one thing i don't use the language you are
00:36:57.460
wimpy that person's wimpy it's an ideology it's the zeitgeist of the 2020s we are wimpy weak and woke
00:37:05.060
the church has become wimpy weak and woke wimpy means this wimpy is when you value tone winsomeness
00:37:12.840
and empathy over truth i'm not going to say the truth because it's going to hurt somebody's feelings
00:37:18.800
we're not going to tell people that defund the police is going to kill a bunch of people it's
00:37:22.880
going to be terrible because then we look like we don't care and at least we care that is being
00:37:28.000
wimpy it leads you to being weak actually it's kind of a chicken or the egg what came first thing
00:37:34.360
the weakness is that we are weak philosophically we are weak theologically and it leads to the
00:37:40.240
biggest weakness of all which is when christians begin apologizing for the bible apologizing for
00:37:48.200
the character of god there's a lot of christian leaders not ashamed to say the name of jesus but
00:37:53.280
they are ashamed of the character of jesus that is the greatest weakness that we can have we have
00:37:59.980
become woke what does woke mean i write in the book and i'm saying this because i've had so many
00:38:04.080
people john i used to listen to music and now i hate you because i love the poor and if you think
00:38:08.860
i'm woke because of that then then i'm not listening i write in the book in chapter one caring for the
00:38:14.560
poor hating racism standing up for the oppressed and marginalized caring about the material outcomes
00:38:22.520
of the poorest among us is not being woke that's what christians do that's what christians have been
00:38:29.500
doing for ever since the new testament times it's what we've been known for all that tolerance and
00:38:35.580
all that that equality and all that things that you that the world thinks they love they got that from
00:38:40.480
us okay we do care about those things being woke is when you trade biblical justice for secular
00:38:48.420
social justice it is a way is a totalizing worldview wokeness is as you said this is everybody through
00:38:55.420
oppressed and oppressor groups so what it does is it redefines who is the poor and oppressed it
00:39:03.360
redefines that and so now you have to stand up for whoever is coming down the pike whoever the next
00:39:09.960
group is and that's why you have a bunch of confused feminists to be honest that were like i've been
00:39:15.900
standing up for women i've been standing you know for this and this and this and now you have biological men
00:39:21.500
playing sports and went on women's teams and now we have people like jake jk rawlings the author of
00:39:28.260
the harry potter series who's just totally hated she's like guys i am a feminist i'm actually even
00:39:34.940
pro-trans i just think there should be spaces for biological women and she is completely annihilated for
00:39:42.360
this so now you're going to have the next group come up wimpy weak and woke is not i'm not fighting
00:39:49.420
this so that we can take back power as they say in this documentary so that we can have power and
00:39:55.000
make people we're fighting it because we believe it's going to lead people their souls to hell and
00:40:01.180
their bodies to hell like in this world it is going to become devastating last thing i'll say about that
00:40:07.880
yeah every time there's a utopia that's tried every every book every philosophy it's just tyranny
00:40:14.940
so it's no wonder that they wanted tyranny during the pandemic tyranny for the jabs tyranny for covid
00:40:23.540
kicking people out of the military i've met some of these people like i wanted to spend my entire
00:40:28.540
life in military i'm kicked out because i wouldn't get the jab they have to impose tyranny and that's
00:40:34.260
why thomas moore's utopia he's the one that coined the term utopia his utopia celebrates euthanasia
00:40:41.300
utopia because it's all about the common good and people with an illness that's going to cost a
00:40:46.600
bunch of money and a bunch of time and it's cancer and it's going to all these all this money is going
00:40:52.080
to have to go to you you know what we're going to do we're going to put you to death for the good of
00:40:57.140
society and we're going to call it virtue yeah that is basically the same thing as the argument being
00:41:03.900
made for abortion we have to have abortion because without it all these other people are going to get
00:41:09.200
hurt and yada yada yada so that's why i wrote the book wimpy weak and woke you can only get the
00:41:14.460
physical book at my website because i published it myself john l cooper.com is the only place people
00:41:20.560
can get it yeah you know you made me think of something i love that you're bringing utopia into
00:41:25.180
this because i'm realizing that it's when you shoot for utopia you land in dystopia so you shoot
00:41:31.520
for utopia you land in brave new world you shoot for utopia where we have this perfect world so they
00:41:38.260
think where everyone has equal outcomes and there's no religion basically the manifestation
00:41:42.580
of john lennon's imagine you shoot for that you land in brave new world and you know all all of
00:41:49.280
that orwellian nonsense that we see is because as you said they're shooting for something that doesn't
00:41:55.600
exist and it is actually a competitive eschatology like to christianity in that like okay christianity
00:42:04.040
we believe that one day jesus is coming back and he will make all that is wrong right well they also
00:42:10.220
believe that that can be achieved but outside of christ like outside of salvation outside of
00:42:15.680
repentance really it's not sin that's getting in the way it's not satan that's getting in the way of
00:42:21.320
their you know new kingdom new heaven and new earth it's all of us oh that's good can i jump in on
00:42:27.580
that sure yeah please yeah you just touched on one of the major themes of my book actually and one of the
00:42:33.320
major reasons i wrote it which i didn't mention yet which is brilliant that you mentioned it
00:42:37.160
because in 2020 as this stuff was happening i remember arguing with christians that i love
00:42:43.680
brothers and sisters in christ that we just don't agree on this it's frustrating they're like john
00:42:49.740
we believe in the kingdom of god so you see where that's going it's going into this but like like
00:42:57.160
the kingdom it's like in the book i call it faux post-millennialism it's a it's a it's a version of
00:43:03.520
post-millennialism that's sort of like poisoned and saying well we believe in the kingdom like
00:43:08.940
righteousness peace and joy a land of milk and honey and nobody wants for anything and we're all full of
00:43:15.760
joy we believe in that and that is the same thing that the progressives are doing they're trying
00:43:21.260
to reach justice and equity and why don't you see john that they're the same thing and i remember
00:43:26.580
saying something like utopia and the kingdom of god are at odds with each other they are the complete
00:43:33.520
inverse it's it's like stranger things it's the upside down yeah it is not the same thing and so i
00:43:39.660
spent a lot of time in the book explaining in fact every chapter i have these things i call bible
00:43:45.580
binaries i call them bible binaries because i got sick of people saying john they probably say to you
00:43:50.520
do ali you're just such a binary thinker you have to stop thinking of binaries you got to think of
00:43:54.680
caveats and we need gray and nuance and all that stuff until basically you're just a moral relativist
00:44:01.240
you're a moral relativist so i created something i call bible binaries bible binaries when when god
00:44:07.120
says uh i'll give you a choice today life and death choose which one you're going to serve and the
00:44:13.040
reason that these utopian things don't work i'm just the simplest way to say to people it's so very
00:44:18.480
easy thomas sowell says it in a great way for people who aren't christians if you're like i don't
00:44:22.520
know about the religious stuff thomas sowell says it great he has his constrained and unconstrained
00:44:28.160
vision and basically what he's saying is is if you believe that man has no constraints on him
00:44:33.560
he is not bad he is not born with a tendency to do selfish things or to look out for himself
00:44:39.800
if you think man has no constraints then you will be a progressive and you will try to go towards
00:44:45.400
utopia if you think that man does have constraints then you are going to have trade-offs you're going
00:44:51.400
to say okay we can never reach the perfect world some things are gonna it's always going to be bad
00:44:56.280
which bad thing do we think is is the best of all the bad the christian version is so simple is
00:45:02.100
basically this we are born into sin every single human being is born into sin he's going to do bad
00:45:08.920
stuff he's going to be selfish and because of that it is impossible to reach a quality of outcomes
00:45:16.540
where everybody has the same thing i write in the book at some point how are you going to give
00:45:20.740
everybody how is everybody going to end in the same place am i going to pay if i have two employees and
00:45:25.880
one is a drunkard and he shows up late and he barely ever shows up and he falls asleep on the job
00:45:31.140
how is he going to have the same outcomes as the guy that shows up on time and works hard
00:45:36.240
how is a kid raising a two-parent family how is the kid from a one-parent family going to ever have
00:45:43.120
the same kind of outcomes with we we've all seen the statistics it's not possible that's why utopia
00:45:51.720
i'm afraid if i bring this up like we could talk for two more hours but i just i have to say it and
00:46:08.780
then i'll let you respond and then we can try to close out but when you said this idea the
00:46:13.560
unconstrained versus the constrained which gosh i recommend thomas soul 2 quest for cosmic justice
00:46:19.340
speaks to a lot of what we're talking about and then also um well there's several books that i
00:46:25.860
could list but i was thinking of rousseau who believed that man is born free but everywhere
00:46:32.220
is in chains this idea that religion and societal expectations and all of this stuff it's it's holding
00:46:39.880
us back and we can finally be liberated and he truly did believe in a utopia that if we just
00:46:45.300
are finally throw off all of this stuff that the world that social constructs have placed on us
00:46:53.280
then we can finally be totally free and everyone have the same outcomes man so this is like hundreds of
00:47:00.880
years old just repackaged in modern form um and it's just the devil playing his same tricks did god
00:47:10.020
really say boom that's the last sentence of my book i don't know what's happening here ali you're
00:47:16.400
just we're on the same page i mean um you know what you just said is really important so i have
00:47:21.340
650 footnotes in this book all right 80 pages of footnotes the reason being i believe if christians or
00:47:29.880
non-christians i believe if they read the original words of rousseau of carl marx of freud of the sexual
00:47:38.260
revolution by we didn't get into wilhelm reich um i had to read this oh i wish to god i'd never had
00:47:43.520
to read it but you have to read he's the father of the sexual revolution he's he's the father of the
00:47:49.820
1960s free love movement that has led us to where we are today it's the most godless stuff i've ever
00:47:55.580
read in my life it's horrible and um if people read these original words they will go oh my gosh
00:48:03.740
this is evil this is wicked stuff and that's why it is not idolatrous to say the war against america
00:48:12.480
is a war against christianity it's not because american christianity are synonymous it's because
00:48:19.200
what they are at war with is actually the created order they hate the created order rousseau marx they're
00:48:26.580
basically saying if we can just throw down god and all of his constraints upon humanity uh his laws
00:48:35.160
basically his commands his law if we get rid of that then we're we're going to be awesome it's going
00:48:40.040
to be really great and that's why they sexualize kids at i mean i'm trying to be shocking but wilhelm
00:48:46.400
reich he one of his big things was fighting for the the free sexual he calls them genital rights of
00:48:52.860
children and he advocated that there's always that that just seems to be the common thread because
00:48:59.000
he believes the the way to reach utopia is for for man to finally release the sexual constraints
00:49:06.160
because we are sexual beings and it's it's so horrifying and so gross so i tell people go get
00:49:12.360
the book john l cooper.com you'll read the footnotes and you will never again uh be confused when when
00:49:19.200
you say to somebody i don't like that because that's that's from marx and they go you don't
00:49:23.620
even know what carl marx said you don't even know what critical race theory is you're a christian
00:49:27.680
nationalist you will know that you will know the quotes from the horse's mouth from the original
00:49:32.980
people you'll know you're being lied to and then you'll have the confidence to argue back with the
00:49:39.100
word of god every single chapter i give the biblical response this is why it doesn't work and we know
00:49:45.460
that if we argue with the word of god that's it that's the end of it did god say yes he has said
00:49:52.480
he gives us his word and we can stand on his word you can take it to the bank because his word never
00:49:58.440
ever fails what does the bible verse say the flowers fade the grass withers but the word of our god
00:50:04.200
stands forever take it to the bank yes and amen i've got to say one more thing john i gotta say one more
00:50:11.480
thing because it's such an interesting conversation but i okay and then you got to end with another
00:50:17.120
banger like that but you what you were talking about wilhelm reich and it just always goes back
00:50:23.380
to it seems like perversion and children and and all of that stuff i one thing i forgot to mention in
00:50:28.280
that documentary clip that we played uh one of their examples of evil christian nationalism was
00:50:34.520
actually a dad being dragged out yes dad being dragged out of a school board meeting well that
00:50:40.960
was the dad that was in there raising a ruckus because his daughter had been assaulted by a boy
00:50:49.000
who identifies as a girl in the bathroom so what is the point of including that clip in this documentary
00:50:56.220
that's to say that parents parents you don't even have a right to stand up for your own children you
00:51:05.180
just have to allow progressivism to steamroll you and your family even if it means sexual assault
00:51:12.580
that's what we are up against and that is why your book is so important yes i'm so glad you mentioned
00:51:19.500
this so we're about i'm gonna dive into this it's gonna be so good i'm gonna make it so simple and so
00:51:24.100
quick okay we'll end on that end on it if you want because i can go all day i know we could
00:51:29.320
i feel my daughter's gonna laugh at this when she hears that sorry rewind critical theory critical
00:51:37.680
theory of course does not believe in absolute truth the critical these are the neo-marxist
00:51:42.080
critical theory teaches that truth can only be found in a correct moment of practice that means we
00:51:50.400
don't know what truth is there is no such thing what is a correct moment of practice they define
00:51:55.160
it a correct moment of practice is standing up for the oppressed and the marginalized any way you have
00:52:02.880
to stand up for the marginalized is is okay you can lie you can cheat you can hurt people because you
00:52:11.580
got to remember mark hughes repressive tolerance he's the critical theories this is coming from that group
00:52:16.200
you can hurt people you can burn down buildings you can you can smash windows you can threaten people
00:52:23.120
it doesn't matter it's not immoral because there is no absolute morality you can only know if it's true
00:52:29.220
or moral at the end of the process of the correct practice so these people don't mind lying they don't mind
00:52:36.620
saying do you see what they're doing they're causing violence look at that dad they throw him in there
00:52:41.440
even though any good dad would be raising nine kinds of holy heck down there had your daughter
00:52:48.820
been sexually assaulted by some dude saying he was a girl in a bathroom now we know even more since then
00:52:54.900
from daily wires reporting we know even more that they covered it up they lied about it and if i remember
00:53:01.660
correctly i think that boy had done this before in a different school and they just quietly moved him
00:53:07.520
because he's the oppressed that is wicked that is evil that is a that is anti-feminism that is a war
00:53:16.080
against women why is it okay because now we're speaking up for the next oppressed group that came
00:53:20.880
down the tide which is the transgender gender fluid community it's not immoral because we won't know
00:53:26.580
it's moral until we get to the end of fighting for the marginalized that is what the bible calls detestable
00:53:34.000
the bible says i detest unequal weights and measures so once again the bible proves true
00:53:42.680
and the and man's ideas prove to be idolatrous and detestable and destructive gosh and if we love
00:53:50.000
the people around us if we love the country which god has purposely placed us we will carry these ideas
00:53:55.780
into the public sphere because they matter they matter you gotta love people enough to be hated
00:54:02.440
you gotta love them enough to say i know you don't get i love you so much i'm gonna do it even
00:54:08.080
though you're gonna hate me for it that's the test is if you really love these people or not
00:54:12.320
yep um okay tell everyone again where they can buy your book go to john l cooper.com now the kindle
00:54:19.820
version is available on amazon i'm having issues at amazon because i self-published it i think it's a
00:54:25.380
great book sometimes people say what's the audience for this i don't really know but i will say this
00:54:29.700
if you have christian friends or even friends that just think you're being alarmist all the time like
00:54:35.180
things are so bad and let's say that they're like these people watching the documentary they're going
00:54:39.240
that are constantly telling you oh nothing new under the sun it's not really that bad um you're just
00:54:44.780
making a big deal about it and you're saying oh the country's going down that's who needs to read this
00:54:49.200
book because if they see the original words of these people they will not play around with the ideas
00:54:55.260
any longer yes and amen thank you so much john i really appreciate it i loved it