The Auron MacIntyre Show - A Biblical Case for Public Vengeance ｜ Guest： Timon Cline ｜ 10⧸15⧸25

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00:00:27.340 Airlines. When you travel, travel well. Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining

00:00:32.420 this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to

00:00:36.340 enjoy. A lot of things have been coming out after the Charlie Kirk assassination. Obviously,

00:00:43.100 we've seen continued leftist violence, but even in the face of this violence, many people have said

00:00:49.160 that it's not okay to call for justice or even vengeance for Charlie Kirk. They say, no, you're

00:00:56.120 a Christian. You have to forgive. You have to move on. There's nothing you're allowed to do, 1.00

00:01:00.340 nothing you're allowed to go out and say, nothing you're allowed to advocate on behalf of,

00:01:04.340 because ultimately forgiveness has to be what you're centered on. But that's not really a reflection

00:01:09.780 of what Christian society has said about justice, what the Bible says about justice, and the role

00:01:15.460 that the government plays in this process. Oftentimes we entirely conflate the role of the government

00:01:21.460 and the role of the individual when it comes to forgiveness and justice. Talking to me today about

00:01:27.440 this is one of the guys over at American Reformer. He wrote a great article on this topic.

00:01:33.540 Simon Klein, thanks for coming on, man. Thanks so much for having me again, Warren. Always good to be

00:01:37.720 with you. Absolutely. Well, we're going to dive into the biblical case for public vengeance, but before

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00:02:44.740 All right, Timon, like I said, we've talked, of course, on the show about the practical political

00:02:50.340 realities, why you have to punish the left, why it's not okay to just let this slide in general.

00:02:57.200 I think a lot of people, of course, would say you need to punish the murderer of Charlie Kirk. I think

00:03:03.240 that's pretty obvious to everyone, why the public magistrate would punish the murderer, and then

00:03:09.660 Erica Kirk can choose to forgive or not as a private citizen. However, a lot of us have,

00:03:15.260 I think, correctly pointed out that there needs to be a wider scope of this kind of pushback. It's not

00:03:21.300 enough to simply punish the one person who pulled the trigger, and a lot of people have had big

00:03:26.460 problems with that. I even got attacked by Reason Magazine as an incredibly dangerous figure for

00:03:32.420 pointing out that if there is no public vengeance, if there is no wider understanding applied by the

00:03:39.300 government of how we should conduct ourselves in moments like this, we're going to see more of

00:03:44.340 this. And I think you laid this out very well in your piece at American Reformer. Can you give us a

00:03:49.680 little bit of just a basic framework? Why do we need to understand the role of private forgiveness and

00:03:57.480 public vengeance differently? Yeah. Well, first of all, I just say everything appears dangerous to

00:04:03.820 Reason Magazine, and you should consider it a badge of honor that they find you dangerous.

00:04:09.660 In any case, right, so the dichotomy was kind of set up publicly even as early as Charlie Kirk's

00:04:17.440 memorial service between Erica and her personal forgiveness of the killer, even unrequested by the

00:04:24.780 killer, but she offered it anyway. And then Trump saying, I don't forgive my enemies, you know,

00:04:29.100 and obviously, I think there's a good argument that was partly tongue in cheek, but there's also

00:04:33.240 something serious about it, given his position. And I think that apparent dichotomy or apparent

00:04:40.580 conflict, followed by people, as you were noting, generally speaking, saying, you know, as Christians,

00:04:47.380 we should be calling for the forgiveness and maybe clemency of people who do wrong. And of course,

00:04:53.080 at bare minimum, you have to take the Mike Pence route, which is to limit all the causality and all

00:04:58.640 the damage to this one individual case, this one person. I think he said, well, you know, one person

00:05:04.200 killed Charlie Kirk, we're not going to put America on trial. That was kind of his line after this.

00:05:09.440 And among other things, what's confused in all this is the distinction, very, you know, the traditional

00:05:15.620 kind of distinction between public and private persons. These are different things. Public persons are

00:05:21.360 representative of others. They have authority. They have sovereignty. However, they get it

00:05:26.600 doesn't matter at this point. The point is they're different than private people are. And so there is

00:05:32.560 actually, in many ways, a different ethic that public figures have to embody in order to perform

00:05:39.880 their duties as public persons. So this basic distinction being absent from a lot of the conversation

00:05:45.740 created a lot of confusion. And we can, we can unpack it more, but I think that's the most basic

00:05:50.480 point we have to start with.

00:05:52.800 No, again, very important. As you say, your role as a magistrate is not the same as a private

00:05:58.840 individual. And you go into this in the piece that ultimately the magistrate is taking on certain

00:06:05.440 tasks. He has to commit certain acts that otherwise people would shy away from. And this is something

00:06:11.560 that I think a lot of people miss in our discussions about public officials, right? They, we want

00:06:16.700 someone who's just competent. We want someone who just has the right managerial skills, but actually

00:06:21.780 statecraft is not just a set of managerial skills. It's not the ability to more efficiently run a

00:06:28.880 bureaucracy or apply government policy. It's about making critical decisions and taking on

00:06:34.240 responsibilities that other people would not. Joseph de Maestria called this decisionism, right? That you

00:06:39.560 have this duty to act when others would not, to bear the weight of responsibility when others would

00:06:45.780 not. And in many ways, he says the executioner is kind of a cog between the authority of the prince,

00:06:54.520 the authority of the king and the people. It's this thing that binds them together and cements the

00:07:00.200 authority that God has instantiated in that system. And if you don't properly exercise that authority,

00:07:07.700 if you leave it on the wayside, then order breaks down because if people do not see the magistrate

00:07:14.120 applying that form of public vengeance, they will seek private vengeance. And so when we think about

00:07:21.140 the Christian ethic, it's not that there's a lack of justice or even a lack of vengeance, but it's

00:07:27.180 a transferral of the authority from the private vengeance on the private enemy to the magistrate's

00:07:35.260 public vengeance on the enemy that has wronged the public. Yeah. And I think you can see right away

00:07:41.700 a difference between the public and private person, the magistrate and the citizen, a difference in the

00:07:48.500 way they're supposed to behave and what they're allowed to do, because clearly the injunction against

00:07:55.700 murder in the Sixth Commandment does not in some way apply to the civil authority. He is allowed to

00:08:01.840 take life, right? So clearly there's a difference in what we are. And then there's a difference in

00:08:07.200 purpose of our actions and what they're supposed to be oriented to. And so we're precluded from taking

00:08:12.320 private vengeance for people who wrong us in a private way. The Bible's very clear on this. We

00:08:18.680 are supposed to forgive. We are supposed to be long-suffering. We're supposed to have our

00:08:22.940 sort of consciousness of actions even against us understood in light of eternity and in providence

00:08:29.960 and so on and so forth. But the public man, the magistrate, the one who has authority is supposed

00:08:36.340 to have a very different perspective on these things, especially threats against his citizens,

00:08:41.840 threats to disorder, violence, so on and so forth. And this is all part of his duty of rewarding good

00:08:48.180 and punishing evil, of keeping order, of reflecting God on earth, of being God on earth. So vengeance

00:08:53.440 is the Lord's for all wrong in eternity. It also belongs to inside of time, temporally for the

00:09:01.960 sake of God's purposes to the magistrate, the one who's been given authority to do this. And to your

00:09:07.040 point about competence, I mean, yes, this is how we think about our elected officials and these things

00:09:11.660 now. If you read older theologians like Heinrich Bollinger, who I cite in the piece, the first

00:09:19.280 qualification of a magistrate that he lists before anything else is not competency. It's to have

00:09:24.660 sort of the ability, the power, and what he calls a princely stomach to do these things that private

00:09:31.960 people don't want to do and don't have to do, right? And one of those is to execute justice on

00:09:36.320 wrongdoers, both for the safety of your people, but also as an expression of God's justice and his

00:09:42.920 righteous anger. And more functionally, to limit what we call copycats. If you don't punish sin,

00:09:51.680 if you don't publish crime rigidly, you will suggest that people can get away with it. You will

00:09:57.620 multiply the violence, you'll multiply the crimes, which seems pretty intuitive. But this is something

00:10:03.760 that many authors walk through to sort of explain why you actually have to have this vengeance

00:10:09.060 exercise regularly and forcefully and laws upheld so that you don't degrade their authority.

00:10:16.700 So one of the things that I think is really critical as well is that you talk again about

00:10:23.260 going beyond just the original shooter, like you said, Mike Pence, and okay, we're not putting the

00:10:27.960 whole country on trial. But you point out that incitement is itself a form of public disorder,

00:10:34.860 that this is going to create more violence, that this is designed, that's why we call it

00:10:40.000 incitement, designed specifically to end in additional violence, additional crimes against

00:10:47.060 the state, against the magistrate. And so therefore, it's not simply enough to punish just the individual

00:10:53.720 who did the crime if there are those around them that are building up a system, building up a call,

00:11:00.500 building up a reward, ultimately, for committing the crime in the first place. And I think this is

00:11:07.700 what some people got worried about, right? Because we're saying, okay, it's not enough to just stop

00:11:12.680 at this shooter. Like, yes, the shooter should be punished. But we have people who are openly calling

00:11:19.080 for violence. We have people who are repeatedly funding organizations that are enabling violence.

00:11:24.800 And this needs to be the wider scope of what's going on here. The Trump administration has already

00:11:29.800 promised to go after NGOs, to go after Antifa, to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization,

00:11:36.080 to start breaking up its cells. We've seen some arrests at the site of crimes when it comes to

00:11:43.000 ICE agents being assaulted, blocked, this kind of thing. But we have not seen a wider campaign of

00:11:49.700 striking at the heart of this terror network that is encouraging these attacks. Can you explain why

00:11:57.640 biblically it is all right to move to these moments of incitement, to move to these organizations

00:12:02.680 that while they may not be pulling the trigger, are creating an environment, creating an incentive

00:12:07.140 structure, and enabling the violence itself? Yeah, I think the Bible and Christian theology are both

00:12:15.240 realistic about how these things work, right? And that culpability is not limited to the sort of final

00:12:21.380 action. Anything that is, you know, traditional commentary on the Sixth Commandment itself would

00:12:28.900 say, if you are inciting this, if you're encouraging it, if you're preying upon, especially weak people

00:12:34.260 who will take you up on it foolishly, if you're creating the kind of environment where it's foreseeable

00:12:40.780 and that this is going to emerge, especially against like specified targets, you know, it's one thing to

00:12:47.080 just, I don't think most people would take an argument that's just like, you just go outside and

00:12:51.460 somehow be violent, just a general encouragement. But we've seen, you know, I give this thinly veiled

00:12:57.760 hypothetical of like, what if you were a journalist who for the past like 10 years has every day been

00:13:03.100 going out and joining your other journalist friends to declare so-and-so Satan and then to justify that

00:13:09.220 Satan, of course, can be resisted by violence, even lethal force. And you do this over and over and

00:13:13.540 over again until people take you up on it. You have culpability in this. And this is what we've

00:13:17.640 seen from our journalistic class for a decade at this point since, you know, 2015, 2016. And then,

00:13:24.920 of course, you know, what you're referring to is even more culpable, not just the encouragement,

00:13:29.080 but the mechanized and organized enabling and provisions for this kind of violence. So it's the

00:13:36.240 encouraging sort of propagandistic side, but then it's also, you know, providing the munitions,

00:13:41.800 we might say, certainly culpable in this regard. And so therefore this culpability should be met

00:13:48.660 with public vengeance, again, not private vigilante justice. In fact, that's what we're

00:13:53.660 trying to discourage and punish in this regard. But with public vengeance, and it's perfectly justified, 0.94

00:13:59.440 in fact, good for Christians to be enemies of disorder and corruption and so on and so forth 0.98

00:14:05.000 to encourage the magistrate to call on him to exercise public vengeance on these things.

00:14:11.800 So I think the word vengeance is one that's going to give a lot of people pause in this,

00:14:17.020 right? They might say, well, I don't mind justice or deterrence, maybe even, right? Like maybe they

00:14:22.580 say, well, I understand why we might need to execute the bad guy to deter further crimes, right? But the

00:14:29.980 word vengeance for a lot of people, that sounds hateful. That sounds, you know, the retributive justice

00:14:36.700 is the problem, right? That ultimately we should only be deterring and we should never have

00:14:41.440 retribution. But I think that aspect is important because, as you say, these crimes do call out for

00:14:48.660 vengeance. There is ultimately a recognition that justice means vengeance at some level.

00:14:55.640 And so if there is not the understanding that you are ultimately making right some aspect of this

00:15:01.380 crime, that the proper wage is being paid, then I think we do miss something as a society. That

00:15:07.860 doesn't mean that we are reveling in a violence or torture or these things, but recognizing, as I think

00:15:14.380 you point out in the piece, that clemency itself is a crime against the victim if it's done by the

00:15:22.340 magistrate without any justice. The clemency there is something that is giving them an opportunity to pull

00:15:30.380 back, perhaps, excesses of vengeance. But that does not mean that we should not, in general, have this

00:15:36.480 vengeance, because if you don't have it, as you're pointing out, if the state will not do it, will not

00:15:40.620 take its role in this moment, then the average person will, because just the laws of nature will

00:15:45.680 drive them towards this end if they do not see it meted out by the state.

00:15:49.980 Yeah, that's right. I mean, I'll briefly say, then circle back to the point of retribution, but

00:15:55.000 there's a sense in which an inattentive

00:15:58.540 secular authority

00:16:00.420 is tempting people to take matters into their own hands, right?

00:16:05.100 And this itself you would be culpable for.

00:16:08.600 There's a great article

00:16:10.980 from Henry Cabot Lodge

00:16:12.560 way back in the early 20th century about

00:16:15.000 a vigilante lynching

00:16:17.360 of Italian immigrants that takes place in Louisiana because they suspect

00:16:21.140 them of being in the mafia. And he says, obviously, this cannot be condoned and these

00:16:25.780 people should be punished, but this is Congress's fault for their immigration policy.

00:16:30.100 They've they've created the conditions where people will do this and it's totally foreseeable

00:16:34.980 and it's on you guys. Right. So it's a perfectly

00:16:38.980 reasonable way to work this out and think about it. So if an inattentive or weak government

00:16:43.700 paves the way for this kind of thing and this is what you want to avoid, this is what a just

00:16:47.300 government should avoid. On the question of like retribution, vengeance, I mean,

00:16:50.740 these are just words we're uncomfortable with, I suppose, but all law is coercive.

00:16:55.380 This is points and obligation backed by punishment. This is how you keep order.

00:17:00.180 And then the punishment can't just be mere deterrence or threat if it's never worked.

00:17:04.580 If it's never doled out, you have to actually punish people for violations.

00:17:08.580 And this is part of the deterrence is most effective deterrence.

00:17:12.100 Otherwise, it's all toothless. So this is just the nature of law and secular authority. 0.73

00:17:16.820 And it is retribution on behalf of the whole when these things are broken, when public order is

00:17:22.180 is abused. So this is just what we're doing all the time or should be doing if we actually uphold

00:17:27.700 our law. So this is not a strange thing. And especially heinous acts. Right. We're not talking

00:17:32.500 about like speeding fines, but heinous acts of violence, public assassinations, political

00:17:37.860 assassinations should be met with retribution and vengeance on behalf of the whole. I just think

00:17:43.220 that's unavoidable and proper. And then you're right. I have a discussion. We can talk more about

00:17:49.780 it of clemency. Of course, this is like, you know, leniency with a sentence when the letter of the law

00:17:56.180 would say you have to, you know, you have to execute them or something. And the magistrate

00:18:01.060 judges can use this at their discretion. It's theirs. But the proper way to exercise it is if

00:18:06.420 equity or if justice calls for a commuted sentence, that the letter of the law somehow doesn't fit the

00:18:11.940 scenario perfectly and justice actually would be to to forego sentencing. When this is not the case,

00:18:18.980 it is, you know, wrong to do so, to exercise clemency in sort of a gratuitous way, in a weak

00:18:25.060 way. And it doesn't promote the public good and it doesn't pursue equity. And in most cases, the law

00:18:32.180 has already been formulated to provide temperance. That's its point in this regard to an order,

00:18:38.100 and it should be followed. And, you know, there's no question in the case of public assassinations

00:18:43.220 whether or not this is legal or illegal. So this is not a case of clemency. Neither is it the case

00:18:48.820 that, you know, abusing published public trust with evil NGOs and slush funds and all these sorts

00:18:56.980 of things is in any way legal or appropriate to the ends that these these kind of carve outs were

00:19:02.420 provided. So those also should not be provided clemency. You also discuss the importance of

00:19:08.580 particularly violence against public figures, figures that are part of the state, old official

00:19:14.420 office or otherwise represent the body politic in a larger way and the importance that those must be

00:19:20.340 punished and they must be punished severely. Can you talk a little bit about why? I mean, I think a

00:19:24.980 lot of people just say, oh, well, of course, the politicians will want to, you know, punish anybody

00:19:28.420 who hurts them. That's going to be their first priority. But you make a case that this is actually

00:19:33.300 critical for the common good as well. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, the public violence,

00:19:38.820 meaning not just that it's done publicly like everyone sees it, but violence against public

00:19:43.700 figures who are representative figures who constitute like a compound or public moral person.

00:19:50.020 They're more than than just themselves because of their either their position or, you know,

00:19:55.220 they're following these sorts of things there. They matter to the commonwealth in a different way.

00:20:00.340 And so this is more acutely an act against the whole the whole country,

00:20:04.820 not just one private individual like they have a disagreement, you know, over who owes who money

00:20:10.580 or something. This is an attack on the entire nation, the entire commonwealth. And so it must be

00:20:17.780 met with particular retribution for that purpose. And we even treat murders generally this way. This

00:20:23.380 is why murder cases are not handled through private suit or civil suit. You actually are not in charge

00:20:29.300 of the prosecution. It's the victim or the family, the victim. You're not in charge with the

00:20:33.220 prosecution. The state conducts that on behalf of the whole, because all murders are considered to

00:20:38.020 be a crime against the society, not just against the individual. So we already do this and already

00:20:43.460 understand this. And it's even more the case when that person, I think everyone intuitively knows

00:20:47.540 this, the way they mourn about it, the way they understand something big has happened. And throughout

00:20:53.140 the history of any, you know, assassinations of public figures in America, this is obviously the case.

00:20:58.740 It means something different and for good reason. And you also discussed the importance of the

00:21:05.380 magistrate to seem severe, even cruel, which again, I think a lot of people would be very scared of that

00:21:12.660 language. But I really want to emphasize this point because I don't think we focus on it enough.

00:21:17.540 It is that ability to justly apply that capacity, which is so rare and what makes leaders valuable.

00:21:25.540 Uh, so can you talk a little bit about why it would be okay for a Christian leader to appear,

00:21:30.340 appeal cruel or why it might even be necessary?

00:21:33.220 Yeah. I have this, um, commentary that's, um, you know, drawing from, from various theologians,

00:21:39.140 but the general idea is like most people actually, um, would advocate, maybe this is counterintuitive,

00:21:46.020 but it would advocate leniency against criminals. Why? Because they're thinking of themselves of what,

00:21:50.580 if that was me, I would want the leniency. So they're not generally capable of actually

00:21:55.060 doling out, uh, punishment or, or real justice in this way. Um, at the same time, they, they can be

00:22:01.380 intemperate like in their anger and do, you know, mob violence is an expression of this. The good

00:22:06.500 ruler has to have control and has to be able to, uh, chart the middle course that is, uh,

00:22:12.420 neither too lenient nor, uh, disproportionate in its punishment. But these things will, this,

00:22:18.020 this exercise of just severity, we might call it is going to appear cruel to the common person,

00:22:23.460 um, because it is cruel. It is shocking. And it's meant to be, um, as a public figure representing

00:22:29.540 the, again, the, the retribution of God and, uh, the, the whole commonwealth. Um, it has to,

00:22:35.700 it has to be this way. And, and the private man is just incapable of doing this. And most of our,

00:22:39.860 you know, today, most of our rulers are incapable of doing this, but this is supposed to be

00:22:43.300 part of their natural criteria. Um, and this is why they are where they are. And we're not,

00:22:48.820 um, ideally speaking. So yes, the magistrate in exercising justice for these types of crimes

00:22:55.140 has to be willing to be thought extremely cruel. And in fact, in a sense, he is being very severe

00:23:00.420 and cruel in that way, but it's for, uh, the, the distinguished, you know, distinguishing factor

00:23:04.980 is, is it, is it for just cause or not? Is it for the public good or not?

00:23:10.660 Interestingly, I think that most of our, uh, you know, civil magistrates have lost this ability,

00:23:16.180 right? This is something that we select against these days. And you can tell because we desperately

00:23:22.020 avoid at all costs, basically applying the death penalty. We still technically have it on a books,

00:23:27.140 but it, it's going to take the most heinous crime you can imagine. And like 30 years of sitting on

00:23:32.420 death row before you finally actually have any of this happen. So the idea of any kind of timely,

00:23:38.660 uh, justice, actual, uh, you know, uh, public vengeance, uh, for the most severe crimes is

00:23:44.340 actually pretty, uh, non-existent in our current paradigm. We can talk a little bit about the

00:23:48.740 death penalty. Let's talk about that first, but also a wider understanding of corporal punishments.

00:23:54.900 Do you think that, uh, well, I guess we'll start with the death penalty. Uh, we have a lot of people,

00:24:00.420 even especially actually the Catholic church saying that this is not Christian, that we should not have

00:24:05.940 the, the death penalty. So can you first make a case for, uh, the death penalty as a Christian, 0.99

00:24:12.340 uh, I guess, ultimately, uh, and it's swift application, not a, not a 30 year infinite appeal

00:24:18.260 process. Well, this is a point I make in the, um, in the piece is actually, if you're, if you're

00:24:25.300 unwilling to, to appear to be cruel and to be severe, you end up being cruel in, in the, uh,

00:24:31.060 in an unjust way, not only is mercy to the guilty, unmercy to the innocent. Um, but also it, it lends

00:24:39.300 itself when you don't have swift and severe justice to things like you're talking about, which I would

00:24:44.820 say it's, it's demonstrably more cruel to have people sitting on death row for 30 years than it

00:24:50.180 is to execute the death penalty. Um, I just think this is an inhuman way to, to, to sort of house people.

00:24:56.020 Um, and it has all sort of like, you know, bad externalities. And so I would say it's, it's actually,

00:24:59.860 we've arrived through our, um, misplaced leniency and mercy, um, at crueler punishments and a crueler

00:25:07.220 state of, of living than, than otherwise would have been the case, uh, because we don't have the

00:25:11.700 stomach to actually do, do what's necessary and appear cruel and severe. Um, yes, I, I heard,

00:25:17.140 you know, many, many people from, uh, suppose a Christian perspective saying that the death penalty

00:25:22.420 is, is I guess just wrong. You know, it offends their sensibilities is what they're really saying. But,

00:25:27.380 um, this is, you know, certainly contrary to, uh, Christian tradition. It's, I mean,

00:25:33.300 capital punishment has been upheld, uh, over and over again throughout the Western, uh, Western

00:25:38.420 civilization, which is to say Christian civilization, um, and has been exercised in, you know, all

00:25:43.620 Western countries until historically speaking fairly recently. Um, and of course it's just, it's, 0.75

00:25:48.740 it's, you know, in the Bible, the only time the image of God, that, that phrase that like all

00:25:53.380 evangelicals love to throw around as a sort of comprehensive ethic is ever mentioned is in the 0.95

00:25:58.260 context of, uh, justifying capital punishment. Um, and the reason is justified is it is in a,

00:26:04.340 in this sense, when you are destroying the image of God in man, you are attacking God himself. Um,

00:26:10.980 you are playing God, you are, you're, um, deciding when and where life will be ended, um, in place of the

00:26:17.220 creator. So as the actual God on earth, the magistrate, um, should behave, this should be,

00:26:22.820 uh, the most severely punished crime. Um, it's the most universally recognized as, as, you know,

00:26:28.900 according to the natural law as being, um, you know, disallowed and, and, uh, and, and awful, or,

00:26:35.300 you know, whatever you want to say about it. Um, and that's for a good reason also, uh, sort of

00:26:39.300 encoded into nature, into our being self-preservation being sort of the first law of nature is the

00:26:44.420 contrast of this self-defense, you know, flows from that. Um, so obviously the, the magistrate

00:26:49.980 should take this with the utmost serious, it should never be tolerated. It should never be

00:26:53.760 offered clemency, right? Uh, there's all sorts of, you know, edge cases you can come up with,

00:26:58.020 of course, and this is not speaking to adjudication of these crimes, uh, to have demonstrable proof

00:27:02.720 and, you know, make, you know, do your best to make sure you don't falsely accuse, uh, innocent

00:27:06.860 people. Uh, but in the main, and in the case we're talking about, um, I think there's, there's no room

00:27:12.280 within, uh, scripture or the, or the Christian tradition to say that this would somehow be

00:27:16.820 unwarranted or inhumane to do so. Uh, in fact, the opposite's the case.

00:27:22.360 Now, obviously this is, uh, this is currently two Protestants, uh, you know, uh, throwing stuff 1.00

00:27:27.580 over the fence here, uh, but since, you know, we are the foundation of this, uh, you know, uh, fine

00:27:34.560 land, uh, we will, we will go at our, at our leisure. Uh, so, uh, why do you think, cause this is

00:27:40.600 what I hear all the time from Catholics, right? And, and I, there's a lot about the Catholic

00:27:44.640 church that I respect, but this is always a difficult one for me. They always tell me,

00:27:48.960 well, it doesn't matter if you get a bad Pope because ultimately, uh, the doctrine of the church

00:27:53.540 persists, right? Like that we, we, we, we never changed the doctrine and that's, that's what

00:27:58.340 continues to be stalwart in the face of, you know, any given, uh, leader. And, you know, I I'm

00:28:03.880 sympathetic to that case. I I've made the, you know, the case many times, what if you get a bad

00:28:08.240 King? And then you have all these horrible democratically elected politicians, uh, that

00:28:12.960 are worse than any King you can ever imagine. But, uh, but when you look at, um, the Pope

00:28:18.340 here and, uh, what has become Catholic teaching, uh, it becomes clear that, uh, the death penalty

00:28:24.180 is basically forbidden at this point under Catholic doctrine. Uh, but if I read the Bible,

00:28:29.620 if I look at Christian tradition, none of that seems to be the case. Why has this shifted

00:28:34.980 over time? And then they, obviously I'm not going to make you make the case for papal authority,

00:28:39.080 but, but what, why has this shifted over time when it's supposed to be the bad Popes

00:28:42.860 don't shift Christian doctrine under the Catholic church? Why are we, why do they keep moving this

00:28:47.440 direction? Yeah. Well, and, and our, our Catholic friends, you know, those, those of them in the

00:28:53.080 trenches with us, I'm sure we'll have their, their own objections to this. And they always have

00:28:57.160 very clever, smart ways of interpreting these, these problems and solving them for themselves. I'll

00:29:02.460 leave, I'll leave that to them. It's, it's apparent to me that the, uh, certainly the string of Popes,

00:29:07.100 uh, since we've been alive, but I would say in the, in the modern era have increasingly, uh, ticked

00:29:12.700 towards basically the, the baptism of liberal sensibilities, um, as the rest of the world calls

00:29:18.780 on it to be. So, you know, what the motivation is for that, uh, I'm not sure, uh, but it's coming

00:29:24.320 externally on onto the church in terms of its tradition, rather than internally being generated as far,

00:29:29.540 as far as I can tell. Um, and so this, these kinds of things like, you know, the same, uh, adoption by

00:29:35.680 the, by the papacy for all intents and purposes of, of like climate change dogma and, uh, the same

00:29:41.300 kind of talking points on migration, all these things. Um, these are, you do not find these kinds

00:29:47.020 of concerns or practices in the high medieval church. Uh, you don't find aversion to capital

00:29:52.000 punishment in the high medieval church. This is just not, you know, where, where all the tradcasts 1.00

00:29:56.360 would like to land. This stuff is not there. Um, and I'm sure they recognize that. And that's part

00:30:00.820 of why they, they think the way they, they do. Um, so it seemed to me, it's a foreign incursion into, 0.96

00:30:05.540 uh, the Roman Catholic church, but that has nevertheless been adopted or approved by its,

00:30:10.240 its leadership. And I don't understand as a Roman Catholic, how you're not forced to

00:30:14.840 either embrace it and adopt it based on your own ecclesiology, um, or go elsewhere. Um, it's,

00:30:21.160 it's a conundrum for them to figure out, but I certainly wouldn't be able to stomach it.

00:30:24.540 Yeah. I mean, the dodge you always get is like, well, the Pope wasn't speaking ex cathedra,

00:30:29.240 right? I think that's what they call it when he's speaking with, with, with the official weight

00:30:32.400 of divine, uh, authority. Uh, and that, okay, I can take that, you know, for some of this,

00:30:37.980 but I'm pretty sure when it comes to death penalty, they have spoken on this. And so,

00:30:42.860 uh, it seems like their dictate is in direct violation of Christian tradition and biblical law.

00:30:49.600 Uh, and so, yeah, that, that's, and we would say of apostolic law, right? What about the case

00:30:54.160 of Ananias and Sapphira, where we would say, uh, the, the Roman reading of this is that St.

00:30:59.360 Peter himself, and of course he does actually do this, but I mean, the, uh, the political

00:31:02.880 theology, theological import, uh, commits the, uh, you know, executes, uh, two members of the church

00:31:09.420 for their theft. Okay. So the, the St. Peter, you know, exercises capital punishment. And so in the

00:31:16.140 lineage, the apostolic lineage, it would seem that this can't be, uh, this can't be changed. Um,

00:31:21.500 this is something that power, the apostles exercised. Yeah. Yeah. No, good point. Good

00:31:26.540 point. Well, uh, I think that covers mainly what you covered in your article, but I also

00:31:30.920 want to want to talk about the larger reaction in a Christian sense, because, uh, you know,

00:31:36.300 one of the most interesting things, uh, about Charlie Kirk's memorial service and a lot of

00:31:41.140 people, uh, it's flashy, it's loud. There's, you know, guitar music, there's pyrotechnics.

00:31:47.280 I get all that. The aesthetics aside, um, this was a, uh, situation where basically every

00:31:55.420 major, uh, leader on of the Republican party, the Trump administration, these people came

00:32:01.540 out and the vast majority of them focused their discussions on Christ, right? Like everyone

00:32:08.540 from Rubio to, uh, uh, to Vance to Tucker Carlson, you know, public officials, uh, public, uh,

00:32:16.280 voices, uh, you know, commentators, all these things, every one of them, almost to a man

00:32:21.320 comes out and discusses the importance of Christianity in this instance. And of course,

00:32:27.580 you know, we're used to have presidents sneaking in God bless America at the end of a speech

00:32:32.880 or, you know, when it's really convenient saying, you know, Barack Obama saying, well, the scriptures

00:32:37.380 tell us, you know, something and then completely, but this was the, you know, the first time I had

00:32:42.220 seen that level, uh, of kind of Christianity and on public display. And that's weird. Cause 0.62

00:32:48.880 you know, I'm getting old. So I, like, I re I remember, you know, in the, I remember the late

00:32:53.500 eighties and early nineties to some degree. And even then I don't remember there being, you know,

00:32:58.880 even when the, the religious majority, the moral majority was a real active force in politics.

00:33:04.060 I don't remember ever seeing a public event with that outpouring of Christian faith. And not just

00:33:10.140 that it was, you know, mentioned, not just in the sense that God bless our country and pray for

00:33:14.700 these things, but you know, God should be guiding our response to this. We, we, you know, we should

00:33:19.400 be in embracing a Christian faith, you know, uh, the, of course, many of them were doing this because

00:33:24.640 it was so important to Charlie Kirk and they wanted to honor him, but still, I think that level of,

00:33:29.640 uh, open Christian, uh, acknowledgement and imbuing it into the rationality, you know, that, that we are

00:33:36.980 following a Christian ethic and a Christian logic and how we should respond to this. I think that

00:33:41.680 was a really important moment for the country. What do you think? No, I mean, uh, you're, you're

00:33:47.240 only slightly older than I am more and, uh, so you have a little more memory than I do. But, um, I think

00:33:53.220 that's, I think everyone would have to admit this, even people that hated it, that we haven't seen

00:33:57.400 anything like that from not just one public official, but, but sort of essentially all the major

00:34:03.900 ones, the, you know, the, the cabinet is there basically, um, do it, doing the same thing over

00:34:09.960 and over, you know, some were better than others. Obviously Marco Rubio stood out, um, JD Vance,

00:34:14.880 you know, even later when he's hosting Charlie Kirk show, you know, that stood out where he's

00:34:19.020 reciting, reciting the Nicene Creed and so on and so forth. Um, so I've never seen anything like it.

00:34:23.320 And I do think it marks, um, a change in the cultural dynamics. Um, you could say, uh, you know,

00:34:30.660 this is how I think of it. It's sort of the, the actual immersion immersion for the first time

00:34:36.060 of the culture wars. Um, because this only works, um, when, when only one side of sort of

00:34:42.980 appropriately responding to cultural dynamics, it's a one-sided conflict and the rights never

00:34:48.500 really pushing back with equal force, uh, according to their contrary position and, and convictions and

00:34:54.720 things. You don't really have a war. You have, you have some, you know, basically, uh, you're being

00:34:59.220 bullied, uh, the whole time. And we had, of course, everyone remembers like culture of warriors,

00:35:03.680 Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and these, and they were in some ways ahead of their time

00:35:07.500 in a lot of what they recognize and a lot of what they did, but they didn't have this force. They

00:35:12.000 didn't have real power behind them and they were sort of marginalized. Um, this to me marks something

00:35:17.880 very different where there really is two diametrically opposed positions on display between the left and

00:35:25.160 the right. And the right actually has the ability at least to exercise power. Um, not just, uh, of,

00:35:32.140 you know, the actual government power itself, but of persuasion of, of vying for the laws of fashion

00:35:37.900 and of, of public morality. And that's what those speeches did. They signaled, we think this is good.

00:35:44.340 Maybe some of us are up here for Charlie. Maybe some of us really believe it. Uh, but we think this

00:35:49.340 is good and it's actually something we're going to get behind and we're going to put, uh, our own

00:35:53.760 reputations, uh, on the line, you know, along with it. Um, so totally changed, I think overnight,

00:36:00.280 uh, the cultural dynamics and what we're actually seeing, I would say for now is the first time you

00:36:04.800 actually have a two-sided culture war, uh, that are sort of in many ways equally matched, right? For

00:36:10.620 the, for the first time, you both are able to wield certain forms of real power.

00:36:16.120 You know, uh, the, the term Christian nationalism has been bantied around and I have my own problems,

00:36:21.620 uh, with the term just from a tactical, uh, sense, but ultimately, um, is this not really

00:36:28.480 the embrace of actual Christian nationalism in the sense that this is now, again, I think it's a big 0.67

00:36:35.580 shift between, you know, Christianity is this thing that we adorn our speeches with because it kind of

00:36:41.660 harkens back to this thing. We know we should probably be talking about, you know, what will slip

00:36:46.620 it into a speech somewhere as opposed to like, no, this is the justification and logic for our

00:36:52.780 actions. Like we are following the Christian teachings on this. That is, that is the, uh,

00:36:58.660 tradition that is, you know, the epistemology that brings us to our conclusions. We are following

00:37:03.700 this because that is the natural way that we should reason through or arrive at these decisions

00:37:08.980 collectively. And a lot of the left of course did, you know, we, we get the, the, ah, everything's a

00:37:14.980 Nazi rally. It's a, you know, we, we hear this all the time. Uh, but I do really think that, that, 0.95

00:37:19.860 that underlying logic, uh, logical shift is important because even as you say, if some people

00:37:25.540 up there just saying that, cause okay, well, this is what Charlie would have wanted. And so that's,

00:37:29.580 you know, he would have approved this. We'll talk about this way. I think that starts to seep its way

00:37:34.200 into the operations of many politicians. And in a way, what you were seeing with the Trump

00:37:40.340 administration up there was, uh, uh, an insurgent, uh, movement inside the GOP itself. That's always

00:37:47.000 been true. Of course, Mag has always been, you know, kind of pushing against the established GOP,

00:37:51.480 but I don't think you would have seen even the most Christian, you know, quote unquote politicians.

00:37:56.680 You wouldn't have seen a Mike Pence that talks about, you know, he will talk about his faith,

00:38:01.040 but I don't think you would have had him explaining how it informs the civic, uh, you know,

00:38:06.720 understanding of how we should take action. And that I think really creates a split,

00:38:11.620 not just in the left, right divide, not just a culture war across left and right,

00:38:15.680 but perhaps even a revolution inside of the right inside of conservatism of how we should address

00:38:22.140 these issues by what logic we should take actions and create justifications. And that informing

00:38:27.900 everybody, you know, from staffers all the way up to cabinet members, I think has a very,

00:38:33.300 very important impact. We probably won't see in three or years or five years, but generationally,

00:38:39.480 it will have a big impact on the way that the right organizes and see it sees itself inside of

00:38:44.220 institutions. Yeah. And I think that's exactly right. I mean, yes, uh, MAGA was always first and

00:38:50.300 foremost, a GOP coup. Um, but, but this has been contentious and sort of questionable what the outcome

00:38:56.340 would be for years now. Right. And I actually think this, this moment, um, it totally solidified,

00:39:03.040 it established, here's what the MAGA base is kind of again, or a new, right? These are,

00:39:08.460 these are the people that were most publicly identified with their way of life, their general

00:39:13.080 convictions, their, uh, understanding of the American tradition and history, um, their way of,

00:39:18.760 of wanting to conduct themselves publicly. This is what we're going to be about. You don't,

00:39:22.420 for the other, um, factions or pieces of MAGA as a coalition, they have not had similar representation,

00:39:29.280 uh, in this way. You know, of course this was out of their hands. This is just an event that happened,

00:39:34.080 you know, this is in the hands of Providence, but I'm just saying this because it did happen. This is,

00:39:39.000 this is an obvious shift on the right, um, as a, as a point of orientation or, or, uh, you know,

00:39:45.220 what's going to be magnetic, what's going to sort of drive the boat in this way. Um, so I think,

00:39:50.460 I think that's absolutely the case. And, uh, you know, as many, many people online were saying,

00:39:55.060 you know, this is it Christian nationalism one. I think there's, there's a good reason to say that, 0.96

00:39:59.680 um, insofar as the right, and you see it with people who are not Christians on the right,

00:40:05.720 but still are kind of joined in on this and recognize, um, that it's a good, a good thing,

00:40:11.560 or at least a powerful thing. So they're following the strong horse, the recognition that, um, in the

00:40:16.700 American sort of populist style, this is a Christian nation. And that means we do Christian things

00:40:22.340 publicly. Um, and we sort of center this, that certainly is what, what won in that regard on

00:40:28.340 the right, I think. Um, and that will continue to manifest going forward. I was of course,

00:40:33.780 you know, worried that it was like, is this going to be something real or is this just a moment and

00:40:38.520 everyone sort of put on the Christian hat to do it? But I think it is real. I mean, things that have

00:40:42.440 happened since then, um, that, that have continued that kind of energy or it's still going. Uh, I don't

00:40:48.760 think it's going away anytime soon and we should make sure that it doesn't, you know,

00:40:52.120 the, the left loves to make use of their most despicable kind of martyrs. Um, we shouldn't

00:40:57.140 be ashamed of making a constant reference to and maintaining the memory of a objectively good

00:41:03.000 martyr on our side, um, for, for the same purposes. So if that's what motivates people,

00:41:08.180 that's great. Um, if the moment or the general energy itself does, that's, that's great. But I

00:41:13.120 do think it's, it's changed something. And you see people, even like the, when the vice president

00:41:17.740 says, Charlie inspired me to be more bold about talking about Jesus, I think something's changed,

00:41:23.140 right? Yeah, that's right. Well, and you know, I was just, yeah, that, that dovetails well into

00:41:27.420 my next question. When I had, uh, Nick Landon, Alexander Dugan on, uh, both men who were accused

00:41:33.760 of Satanism recently. Um, they both made, uh, and you were probably accused of Satanism by,

00:41:39.540 I mean, well, it's Tuesday. Um, but, uh, uh, mostly by people who aren't Christian, funny and 0.88

00:41:45.880 funny enough. Um, if you've written a book about how much you hate Christianity and then you call

00:41:49.780 me a Satanist, that's really fun. Um, but, um, the, the, the interesting thing at the end of that

00:41:55.280 interview is, you know, I could try to address those, you know, uh, issues head on, uh, a little

00:42:00.360 bit since they had mentioned Don Tucker Carlson and both men said that, look, we, we wouldn't agree

00:42:05.440 with any of these characterizations, especially Dugan. He's an Orthodox Christian. Uh, but the

00:42:09.940 point is the fact that discussions about spirituality are back in the political mainstream is huge,

00:42:18.340 right? The fact that people will talk about, Hey, that's demonic. Yeah. They're behaving in a

00:42:25.120 demonic way. This is clearly evil that we need to be concerned about evil forces in our politics.

00:42:31.320 The fact that we are simply injecting the spiritual as if it is another valid way to recognize our

00:42:38.380 world is critical because obviously previously the rule of rationality was everything. You

00:42:44.440 weren't allowed to acknowledge spiritual realities, spiritual forces, the metaphysical, the transcendent.

00:42:49.160 If you brought any of those things into a mainstream political discussion or even a philosophical

00:42:53.820 discussion, you get laughed out of the room. It can't impact your law. Any of these things.

00:42:58.440 Now it feels like something has really shifted. Right. And it's part of it is, of course,

00:43:03.160 is just how evil, you know, the level of evil around us is too pervasive. It's too obvious to

00:43:09.900 simply shrug off and say, Oh, well, you know, uh, probably just kooky. Uh, but also it's the fact

00:43:15.160 that we are allowed to once again, uh, reach to that part, the other side of reality, right? That,

00:43:21.300 that we, so long we have denied these transcendent truths, these spiritual realities,

00:43:26.520 because we knew that we would get these weird looks and now that is burst through. And I think

00:43:32.220 we can feel that again with Charlie Kirk, right? Like you look at the assassination of this man

00:43:37.360 and you know, that Satan's real, like that, that, that, that has to be real. You can't,

00:43:43.180 you can't look at these people, you know, celebrating the death of this man in front of his young children

00:43:49.860 who still don't understand he's dead at that point. Like it doesn't even register to them.

00:43:54.280 They're that young where like the, the permanence of his death simply does not, does not fire in

00:44:00.200 their neurons, right? Like the fact that that is something you could celebrate as a human being,

00:44:06.120 it's hard not to look at that and not say, okay, that is a spiritual evil acting on an individual,

00:44:12.660 right? That you, you can't just say mental illness or these things, they are no longer sufficient

00:44:17.900 explanations for what we're staring at. And so in a, in a really interesting sense,

00:44:23.580 I think the return of this Christian nationalism, this, whether we want to use that phrase or not,

00:44:29.500 this public acknowledgement of spiritual forces and Christian truth, I think this comes in the light

00:44:36.280 of just a general understanding that we must re-engage with the spiritual, that it's no longer

00:44:42.040 enough to just pretend that science and logic and reason govern us, that there is another realm,

00:44:47.880 there is another reality. And those things are manifesting themselves in real life, whether we

00:44:52.260 want to acknowledge them or not. Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think it's, it's worth appreciating

00:44:57.940 that we wouldn't have this change or this moment probably if it weren't for the reactions,

00:45:05.100 for this very point that the contrast you're pointing out, right? If evil is like negation of

00:45:09.460 the good, you have to see that, that negation to sort of believe it and understand it, that it's,

00:45:15.060 that it's there. And so I think it wasn't just that Charlie Kirk was shot. It was that you had

00:45:21.500 the type of reaction from the left that you did, that was celebrating it, that was justifying it,

00:45:26.780 that was looking for ways to perpetuate it. Not just in sort of, you know, people that were easily

00:45:33.620 dismissed, but in people that you can't say that they're mentally deranged or crazy because you've

00:45:39.200 just invalidated like the entire credentialing system on your side, right? If, if, if someone,

00:45:44.860 you know, you can't say this about Jimmy Kimmel or other people, they have to be totally competent

00:45:49.820 and smart and morally true and in control of their faculties. So then you're met with, with there's,

00:45:56.920 there's not good explanations. It has to be that something evil is happening. There's something

00:46:00.920 transcendent going on. This is too bizarre, too shocking that people would actually celebrate

00:46:06.500 this against their own ostensible principles, right? And even saw some people on the left,

00:46:10.760 like wrestling with this in real time of like, I didn't think we were about this. It's like,

00:46:15.120 no, you are. That's, this is what your crowd is about. And the fact that they, it was, it would

00:46:22.000 not have had the same effect. It would have different effects, but not the same if it had been Donald

00:46:25.580 Trump, right? The fact that it's Charlie Kirk and that even people who disliked him, um, couldn't

00:46:31.940 deny this sort of Christian boy scout quality about him, right? And doing the, playing by all the rules 0.74

00:46:37.220 you're supposed to play, uh, you know, in sort of, uh, civil society, still playing that game with

00:46:41.880 everyone. And so for him to be killed and then for the reaction to be what it was from the left,

00:46:46.700 um, I think created, uh, an entirely different moment than it otherwise would have been where people

00:46:52.380 are left with in the face of this kind of evil, um, and sort of mocking evil, uh, to only arrive

00:46:59.440 at certain spiritual conclusions. If they weren't already, I mean, this is the same effect as the

00:47:03.740 left pushing hard from gay rights to transgenderism, to trans in the kids, right? This is something

00:47:09.780 that's so, so shocking that the only explanation is that something demonic is happening. It's out,

00:47:14.740 they broke outside this sort of plausibility structure for most people. And so it has that effect.

00:47:20.200 Um, you know, you could list other things, but I think these are, are, um, the externalities of it

00:47:27.500 have for us have been productive in that way. We, you know, don't like all the things that led here

00:47:33.400 that you had to have these things to get here. Uh, but it has, I think the, these things are what

00:47:38.080 turn people back to more transcendent recognition of, of reality.

00:47:42.200 I think that's right. All right, guys. Well, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up, but

00:47:47.440 time in, uh, where can people find your article and do you have anything exciting coming out that

00:47:51.620 you want to make people aware of? Yeah. So they can find the article at American reformer.org

00:47:56.300 where, where most of what I write is. And of course there's other stuff, um, on there as well. Um,

00:48:02.180 I have in the near future, a couple of books coming out, one with Canon press

00:48:05.920 called political Protestantism and another, uh, next year with passage press on, uh, evangelicals

00:48:12.480 in the age of Trump. So be on the lookout for both of those. Um, and you can follow along on

00:48:16.800 Twitter to get, get updates and all that, but those are the things on the horizon.

00:48:21.240 Excellent. All right, guys, we've got a few questions of the people, so we'll check over

00:48:25.220 there, but make sure that you are looking for time and work as well. Let's see. Mostly peaceful

00:48:31.700 merch says Romans 13 is, uh, a used as a bludgeon when the left is in power and is ignored when the

00:48:38.100 right gets a hint of power. Yeah, I think, uh, I'm assuming they mean by Christians. I don't know 0.90

00:48:45.020 if like atheists leftists are citing Romans 13, but, uh, by Christians, right. When, um, the left is in

00:48:51.800 power, um, they're very good at pursuing substantive goods, a vision of the good and, uh, promoting it

00:48:58.140 throughout society and also punishing things they believe are evil. So they're good at a moral

00:49:02.280 vision of the right is, is bad generally, or has been bad when in power of, of, uh, forwarding of

00:49:08.180 substantive moral vision. And then tiny stupid demon says, I remember watching JFK's funeral

00:49:15.460 when JD Vance gave his speech at the Memorial. I thought no prior political figure in my lifetime

00:49:21.360 could have possibly given this speech. It was that studying. Yeah. And JD has really been batting a

00:49:27.020 thousand. We didn't even get to, uh, uh, to, to JD's actions, uh, yesterday with, uh, kind of the

00:49:32.520 Republican group chat and everything that happened there. I'll be speaking, uh, with, with Dave,

00:49:36.460 the distributist tonight about that. You'll see that episode on Friday. Uh, but, uh, but, uh, yeah,

00:49:41.540 he's, he's, he's been a, uh, fantastic asset for, I think, uh, the administration. Absolutely.

00:49:47.440 Absolutely. And then Joe McDermott says, uh, we need to ignore people who say we cannot, uh, enforce

00:49:54.800 consequences. We can still have compassion and forgiveness, but forgiveness does not forego

00:49:59.800 consequences. Again, this is just, I feel it should be obvious. Uh, this is obvious to any parent who

00:50:05.560 isn't terrible at what they do. Um, and of course the state has a far more severe, uh, version of

00:50:11.780 parenthood that they must do for the entire nation. Uh, so the idea that they should forego any of these

00:50:17.500 punishments or that there should not be serious consequences, uh, as, as Tymon has pointed out

00:50:22.820 repeatedly here, that is just, that is just violence against the innocent, right? This is,

00:50:27.180 this is just abdication of your responsibility and therefore violence against the innocent. The

00:50:32.080 entire structure of our society, the, the reason that we, uh, that we push and work so hard to

00:50:38.380 maintain it is that we forego this private justice for the public justice and the public good. If you

00:50:44.860 don't have the private justice, then literally the magistrate is this there to prevent justice at all,

00:50:50.820 which is the cruelest form at all. This is why we call it a narco tyranny, right? That, that the, 0.99

00:50:55.660 that the, the magistrate will punish the just and withhold punishment from the unjust. Uh, this is

00:51:01.780 the worst form of government and it is the one that unfortunately many conservatives and Christians 1.00

00:51:06.620 sometimes seem to advocate on behalf of. Yeah, I, I, I totally agree with that obviously. And, um,

00:51:15.100 and again, the magistrate is supposed to, uh, you'll see this frequently, especially in Protestant

00:51:19.800 theology, the, the magistrate is a double image of God. He images God, not just as a man, but in his

00:51:25.120 office. And so when you're talking about the, you know, there's, there's no, uh, conflict, uh, in God,

00:51:30.980 but when he, uh, exercises discipline on us, right? He's still, he's still perfect love and, uh, all of

00:51:37.580 his attributes are perfect and not contradictory, but he still exercises his wrath and retribution and

00:51:43.000 judgment and correction, uh, on us. So insofar as the, a man can image God in this way, the finite

00:51:49.960 man, the side of heaven, the magistrate is supposed to be that. Absolutely. All right, guys, well,

00:51:56.240 we're going to go ahead and wrap this up. Thank you everybody. Once again, for watching, make sure

00:52:00.280 that you're checking out Timon's article over at American reformer. And if it's your first time on

00:52:05.640 this YouTube channel, you need to subscribe, click the bell notifications, all that stuff. So, you know,

00:52:09.660 when we go live, if you want to get these broadcasts as podcasts, make sure to subscribe to your Mac

00:52:13.800 entire show on your favorite podcast networks. Thank you everybody for watching. And as always,

00:52:17.920 I'll talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - October 15, 2025

A Biblical Case for Public Vengeance ｜ Guest： Timon Cline ｜ 10⧸15⧸25

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