Can Celebrity Conversions Revive American Christianity? | Guest: Jon Harris | 9⧸9⧸24
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per Minute
191.97818
Summary
In the wake of Russell Brand's apparent conversion to Christianity, some have wondered if celebrities have fallen away from Christianity and gone down a darker path. In this episode of the Conversations That Matter podcast, Rolf Harris and I discuss whether celebrity conversions can have a negative or positive impact on Christianity in America.
Transcript
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A lot of people saw the Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand interview,
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A lot of people talking about the context of Brand's conversion to Christianity,
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and he's just one of many high-profile stars that seems to have been on a spiritual quest
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and found that Christianity is the place that they want to look.
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I've been wondering, will this new string of celebrity converts have any impact on Christianity in the United States?
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Does this say anything about Christianity, specifically evangelical Christianity inside America?
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There are obviously many examples of those who have had moments of seeming spiritual conversion,
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but have fallen away and gone down a darker path.
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Talking to me about that today is an author, he is a director,
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and he's also the host of the Conversations That Matter podcast.
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Thank you, Aaron. I definitely appreciate it, and I recommend your podcast to all my listeners regularly.
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It's my favorite political podcast, so it's an honor to be with you.
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Well, thanks, and it's been great to be on your show a couple times.
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I had a great time every time we've had a conversation, so I'm really glad that you can come on here.
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And we're going to dive into this topic of celebrity conversions and whether this could have a positive effect on Christianity in the United States.
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when it comes to what I'm sure will be a very momentous debate.
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So, like I said, I was watching this discussion between Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand,
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both guys who have really ratcheted up their discussion of spirituality over the last few years.
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Tucker Carlson has been a nominal Christian for a while,
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but he said he really started reading his Bible.
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He really started studying it, really started getting into it here over the last few years.
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Russell Brand, somebody who led a very hedonistic lifestyle, quite famously,
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in some cases even has accusations of possible sexual assault, these type of things.
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But someone who seems to have dove very deep into this pool of first spirituality
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Obviously, you have guys like Kanye West that had very mixed results when it came to his very public conversion.
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People like Candace Owens have been talking very publicly about their Christian faith.
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You have even guys in the metal world, which I love, guys like Dave Mustaine,
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who have been metal stars for many decades, have found at the end of the road that Christianity is something that they needed.
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Guys like Alice Cooper, who have been on the road for a very long time, has been a committed Christian for a few decades.
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But guys like Dave Mustaine have been kind of converting recently.
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And with all of these prominent figures kind of declaring some level of conversion to Christianity,
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I wonder what your thoughts are on whether kind of these celebrity conversions can have any real impact in society.
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Do you think that they can speak to kind of a wider cry for a Christian revival?
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Or is this something that's just a fashionable moment that these different celebrities are trying on?
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Yeah, I think that we have seen movements before.
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I think of the Jesus movement from the 1970s that were big kind of popular movements that celebrities got caught up in more or less and endorsed to one level or another.
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But it didn't hurt them to be associated with it.
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This doesn't seem to be a great booster for your celebrity image.
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Of course, Russell Brand is now finding an audience on the right that he didn't have before.
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I was also looking into this a little bit before we started the podcast.
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She sings in the choir at some little Baptist church in Indiana.
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Naila Ray recently, a pornographic actress who converted to Christianity.
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So some of these conversions seem to be authentic insofar as these celebrities or public figures are actually getting rid of some of the things that made them famous.
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And they're willing to change fundamentally who they are.
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And they don't care what the consequences are, if they lose money or lose popularity because of it.
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Kanye West is maybe an exception to some of these things.
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I think of revivals in history, if this is indeed the beginnings of a revival, which I'm not sure it is.
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But there's always going to be false conversions and preachers who want to take advantage of movements and that kind of thing.
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So to see Kanye kind of vacillate and go in different directions doesn't surprise me.
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It's disappointing, I suppose, that now he's saying that he is God and he's got problems with Jesus.
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And it looks like his conversion wasn't necessarily authentic.
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But a lot of these other guys do have authentic conversions.
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And one of the things that ties some of them together, there's two things that I see.
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You have guys who in 2020 realize something is wrong.
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I said, probably a lot of people listening to your podcast are from that group, whether they're Christians or not.
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What I thought about religion doesn't seem to be right.
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And in this vein, I think of Josh Timonen, who was a former assistant of atheist Richard Dawkins.
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He actually set up the North American website for Richard Dawkins.
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But but Josh Timonen was living in Portland, Oregon in 2020.
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So they end up going to this cowboy church in Waco.
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And if you think of like a populist church setting, if you're looking for something more
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populist than a Baptist church, I suppose it would be the cowboy church.
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And he gets converted, baptized, rejects atheism.
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I think it's from San Francisco, if I'm not mistaken, to Texas as well.
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So 2020 forced some issues in their own minds that they had to reckon with.
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I also see people who are just higher to the degeneracy.
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And I think Kat Von D and Nayla Ray probably fit into that category where they're just spent.
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They've tried all the world's pleasures at the Vanity Fair and they've decided that it's
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And in both cases, I think they had a Christian background when they were growing up.
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So they actually had something to tap back into.
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But with a brand new conversion, I mean, that's what they're saying.
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They're saying that they've actually converted.
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Historians will look back if this gets bigger and see the forces that contributed, such as
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We did that actually right now with the First Great Awakening.
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Historians look back and they see different things that took place.
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There is a desire to bind the colonies because they were so diverse that we had the rise of
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commercialism and people who were worried about that.
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And so there were these historical forces that may have contributed to that particular
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And I think that people legitimately do repent of their sins, put their trust in Christ and
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It's a real thing that God can also ordain on a larger level.
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And if you think about celebrities and what they represent in our culture, they have a
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They did not in ancient cultures or even in medieval cultures.
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He wasn't someone that you would look up to as an example necessarily.
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But our heroes now are celebrities, actors, music artists, that kind of thing.
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And so I think that it's I don't know if it's a parallel equivalent, but it is similar in
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my mind to Paul when he argues before King Agrippa in Acts.
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And King Agrippa says, you're going to you're going to convince me to convert if you keep
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Well, King Agrippa was someone in authority who obviously had civil authority, which is
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But I think that in conversions throughout history, mass conversions, revivals, those kinds
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of things, you eventually see the upper classes start to make this change as well.
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And so it would be I think it would be necessary if you wanted to see a fully fledged Christian
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You would either need a new class or you would need people in the current leadership class
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Yeah, I want to pick out two big things there that I think are really important.
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And you were talking about there first, like you said, there have been popular movements
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And, you know, the seeker centered church kind of comes out of, I think, a lot of this
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A lot of the idea that you have to be super open, that the church is there to cast as
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wide a net as possible, to have the lowest bar of entry as possible.
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And a lot of that came in a moment, as you're talking about, where probably many of the
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celebrities that jumped aboard of that or are involved in that really got the benefit
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of a culture that was still Christian, that still embraced Christianity, which still saw
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their conversion as something that was positive.
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It was still them moving towards the mainstream and not the other way around.
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Today, as you point out, a celebrity who is abandoning that lifestyle, you think of a guy
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like Rob Halford from Judas Priest, like obviously, you know, in metal, you know, a guy who's been
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an open gay man for a very long time, you know, has tasted, I'm sure, every pleasure and, you know,
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and I know from things of his personal life has tasted all of the horrible consequences of many
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And they get to the end of this thing and they recognize, you know, I've lived this life
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I've lived this life that was the mainstream is sold to me, that I was an icon inside of.
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And there's really nothing there at the end of the day.
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I recognize that I don't have the things that matter in life.
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I don't have the things that actually make me a complete person, that there's still a hole
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But that conversion now does not come with that cachet.
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In fact, it is very countercultural in a way that did not exist when you had the Jesus
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Also, many of the people who are making these conversions and not all of the ones we listed
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here, some of them, you know, Kanye West obviously was famously at like Joel Osteen's church.
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But, you know, a lot of these conversions are to stricter versions of Christianity, Christianity
00:15:01.940
with a higher bar or ones that are exploring more of the mysticism aspect.
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It's not just your most basic level, you know, just clear the bar Christianity is what I'm
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And so it's very interesting that, you know, people are making that conversion.
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And when they're making that conversion, they're specifically doing it because it requires more
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of them, because it requires them to maybe be more aesthetic or deny themselves or, you
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know, do something that is much better for them spiritually and physically.
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But also, as you said, these are often leaders in a way that sadly is the case, you know,
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today that, you know, back in Rome, actors had a much different reputation.
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But these people are people who do have a lot of influence.
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And of course, we know, you know, from the story and spread of Christianity, that is very
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often, you know, the leaders of households or the leaders of tribes, entire kings with,
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you know, with their entire kingdom, their entire principality would convert because of
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So very interesting that we're seeing a step away from the popular culture against the
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grain, people paying a cost, moving to forms of Christianity that are more demanding.
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And possibly because they kind of have that popular power, that cultural power that you're
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talking about, have the ability to cascade this because they have that ability to lead and
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bring people along with them when they make that choice.
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I think of even Elon Musk, who's tweeted out some things.
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I don't know that he's converted to Christianity, but he's said very positive things about Christianity.
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And he sees the need for, I think, what did he call it?
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An aggressive Christianity or a Christianity that defends itself recently with the Olympics
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And I think that a lot of people are realizing that if Christianity goes, so does everything else.
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That our society really does hinge on some basic assumptions, including assumptions about
00:17:00.300
just human worth and value, that if we lose those, which we seem to be, there's a lot of
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So even people who aren't Christians, but are somewhat thoughtful, I think, can see the
00:17:13.880
I think you made a good point about in especially, I think, of medieval times, many countries or
00:17:20.740
fiefdoms, we'll say, would convert the whole, everyone would convert essentially because
00:17:25.460
the ruler converted, or at least they would say they converted.
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Maybe they weren't legitimate in every respect, but they had to pretend if they weren't.
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And I think today, when this actually dovetails with your book to some extent, when we think
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of the society that we've created, it's very much based on personal choice, individual freedom,
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expanding that as much as we possibly can, getting rid of mediating institutions that
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would limit that so that there's a state that will even fund your freedom if you want to
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And I think really what's happened is that's train wrecking right in front of our eyes.
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People are seeing that without some ordered liberty, you don't actually have liberty.
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And so God has ordained, I think, throughout this experience and looking back at the past,
00:18:19.480
he has ordained for cultures, societies, nations, people groups to come to faith in Christ when
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they do in a revival setting, often because there's someone in the leadership class or people
00:18:32.500
in the leadership class who are starting to push it.
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I'm saying that I think this is actually a means that God can use.
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And one of the things I've noticed growing up, and this is maybe where there's a disconnect
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between the current Christian Big Eva or Christian industrial complex, if you want to call it
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that, and what's happening, what we're talking about with celebrity conversions and people
00:18:54.640
who are wanting alternatives to trash world, is I think that Christians in the religious right
00:19:01.140
have typically thought of America as this place where we have a covenant with God, just like
00:19:09.120
And this is more religious right folks, but they look at America and think, well, you know,
00:19:15.380
Robert Hunt, who was the first pastor in Jamestown, he made a covenant with God.
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I don't think there's a source for this, but they'll say he did.
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And I think it was last year, Glenn Beck and Michelle Bauckham and David Barton and a lot
00:19:26.660
of these guys got together and they tried to re-covenant with God.
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They even called it, I think, a remarriage ceremony or something like that.
00:19:34.300
And the idea is that Americans have something deep to tap into.
00:19:39.520
We have this covenant where God is obligated to honor his end of the deal if we honor our
00:19:46.040
And the reason we have people like Biden in office is because we didn't honor our part
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So all our consequences trace back to some kind of infidelity.
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And so if we start keeping his law again on a popular level as a corporate body, we will
00:20:03.420
And the religious right has functioned this way more or less, I think, for at least 30
00:20:09.660
This is different, though, because these are people who are, in some cases, they had a Christian
00:20:16.640
background, but some of these people are discovering Christianity for the first time.
00:20:30.360
Uh, it's not, you know, the religious right sees themselves as prophetic often where they
00:20:34.720
are representing the nation to God and God to the nation.
00:20:37.580
And they're, they're fulfilling this role that they see the prophets functioning in, uh, like,
00:20:42.740
uh, uh, Daniel or, you know, um, rebuilding the wall, Nehemiah.
00:20:47.480
Um, but those don't, that doesn't describe these people.
00:20:51.360
Like these people don't have any connection to, uh, larger Christianity in the United States.
00:21:00.300
I don't know completely what to make of that, but I, I think at the very least, what it says
00:21:05.400
is that, uh, there's a principle in scripture that God will use the weak things to shame
00:21:09.640
He also resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
00:21:12.460
And I'm very hopeful that God may be using weak things, things we don't expect.
00:21:19.960
I, last time I heard Russell Brand, he was arguing with Peter Hitchens about legalizing
00:21:27.540
Now he's on Tucker praying beautiful prayers and no one gets credit for that in the church.
00:21:34.080
No, no, uh, none of the pharisaical characters and none of, uh, the Christian industry types
00:21:44.160
And I think that's the way he likes to, uh, to work.
00:21:49.720
I want to, so, uh, I want to break that out in a couple of pieces there because, uh, I
00:21:55.320
You know, there's, um, Alexander Dugan has a phrase that is, has haunted my mind since
00:22:00.200
I read it, which was, uh, based to, uh, to paraphrase that badly, you know, modernity
00:22:06.200
was about the death of God, but post-modernity is about the death of who, you know, the, the
00:22:12.160
people have been so apart from God for so long that they've even forgotten to be angry
00:22:17.940
Like if, if the, if the, you know, if kind of modernity was the rebellion against God
00:22:21.940
and saying, we don't need him anymore, we'll, we'll make ourselves, we'll remake ourselves
00:22:30.740
At the end of that, the postmodern is, is almost a moment of, we, we've forgotten even
00:22:37.760
Like this entire, this, you know, this entire, uh, couple hundred years of rebellion against
00:22:42.600
God has itself almost, you know, the, the spirit of that has, has died.
00:22:48.360
And so you're in this moment where there are all these people, as you say, who are completely
00:22:52.980
divorced from the church, have, have never been Christians, have no family that are Christians,
00:22:58.820
All they know is that it wasn't cool to be a Christian, that you were supposed to sneer
00:23:06.520
They're completely, uh, ignorant of the actual tradition.
00:23:09.480
And so when they come to it, um, like you said, it's, it's through fresh eyes because
00:23:14.640
they, they've, they don't even know what they're supposed to hate, uh, if they, if they know
00:23:19.220
And it's from outside of this kind of, uh, architecture of, uh, you know, larger Christianity,
00:23:25.680
larger denominations, or some of these things in many cases.
00:23:28.720
And so you have this moment where, uh, all of these Christian leaders, and you, you've
00:23:34.860
written books about this, Megan Bashman just had a book that came out about this, but so
00:23:38.960
many, especially in kind of the Protestant evangelical world have been racing as fast
00:23:43.520
as possible to become like these Ted talk pastors, right.
00:23:46.240
To just become the, the, these leaders that are elevated, not really because they are on
00:23:51.940
fire for the Lord or because they're deeply spiritual, but because they've accumulated enough
00:23:56.180
a managerial experience to be honored by, uh, kind of the, the, the current, uh, paradigm.
00:24:02.260
And so you have all of these leaders who have invested themselves in moving the church and
00:24:07.520
its architecture and institutions towards kind of really this progressive secular humanism
00:24:14.720
And they can't, like you said, they can't claim any of this because the people coming are,
00:24:21.500
They're, they're so not involved that the revival is happening in many ways outside of the
00:24:26.040
church infrastructure that should be facilitating in the first place.
00:24:29.880
When I went to seminary, I remember this wasn't implicitly, uh, told us that I can remember,
00:24:38.140
You just, this is just the way things were done when you wanted to plant a church or even
00:24:43.440
go to a church, let's say for revitalization project.
00:24:47.380
Cause we have a shortage of pastors and there's a lot of older congregations that are aging and,
00:24:52.420
uh, and they want to know how, how do we tap back into the community and get young people
00:24:57.660
So you're basically taught through example and other ways, I suppose too, that you need
00:25:05.500
to ensure that whatever you do should not look like a church.
00:25:08.640
So, um, I remember in Wake Forest where, uh, I went to school at Southeastern Baptist Theological
00:25:16.240
In that area, there were several startup churches, church plants, which seemed unnecessary to me
00:25:23.560
cause there's just so many churches, but everyone wanted to have their little niche
00:25:28.200
So you would go to, um, a church that's name wouldn't even signify, you would never know
00:25:34.420
it was a church unless Haven, the cove liquid, uh, yeah, the way or whatever it's, uh, there,
00:25:42.180
there's a one near me, uh, it was called the river church.
00:25:44.580
And then I remember a few years ago, someone told me that's just the river now.
00:25:50.480
Like there's not water running through it, right?
00:25:53.460
We, we just dropped the church and that's, that's what's happening in every way.
00:25:59.320
Our architecture should look like a strip mall.
00:26:01.700
Um, you know, there's, there's a church I know of called cross point.
00:26:04.640
You know what they don't have at that church across, uh, it's, it's the corporate logo
00:26:11.600
We don't want cemeteries that would remind people of death.
00:26:14.880
And so, um, the music I think is more self-focused it's entertainment driven, everything you just
00:26:21.940
described about like the skinny jeans pastors and that kind of thing.
00:26:25.660
And this is the road that Christians have been going on evangelicals in particular for,
00:26:30.500
I don't know now, I mean, uh, 20, 30 years too.
00:26:33.600
I mean, as the religious right has existed, so has beside it, this, um, method of trying
00:26:39.480
to attract people who are alienated for, from church by convincing them that, uh, they're
00:26:45.780
But the thing that's happening right now with all these conversions we're talking about,
00:26:50.060
and, and there's others, actually, I'd like to talk about Jordan Peterson a little, he's
00:26:52.900
more complicated, but even with him, all of them, it seems to me are looking for traditional
00:27:00.700
They don't want a strip mall that gives you a Ted talk.
00:27:05.560
They want it to look like a church, sound like a church.
00:27:08.300
They don't care if it's influential, if it's big, that's a really refreshing thing to me.
00:27:13.540
Cause I think that we have to get back to, uh, what makes a church, a church for us to
00:27:20.960
If we don't stand out, there's no reason to come.
00:27:23.320
You can be an activist in the democratic party.
00:27:25.360
You don't need to join a church to do that, right?
00:27:28.260
If you want self-help advice, you don't need to see a pastor for that.
00:27:32.280
But if we are going to be a church that orients ourself to the divine, to, to a higher mode
00:27:39.620
of living, uh, to the eternal realm, then we're going to have to point to the eternal
00:27:44.360
realm with our symbols, with our architecture, with our music, with the way we dress, with
00:27:49.580
what we preach, all of it needs to go back to what it was before, which was pointing people
00:27:57.560
And I think that, uh, these celebrity conversions are, uh, whether it's in, they interpret it
00:28:06.520
I think this is a referendum on the seeker sensitive movement.
00:28:11.460
When I found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from winners, I started
00:28:15.780
wondering is every fabulous item I see from winners like that woman over there with the
00:28:26.520
Did she pay full price or those suede sneakers or that luggage or that trench, those jeans,
00:28:40.940
So I think a big part of this is the general desire for spirituality to reenter our civilization.
00:28:51.940
A lot of people, you know, it's now become cliche, but no less true to point out that wokeness
00:28:59.540
It's a Christian heresy discarding, uh, you know, all of the actual Christ and, and, uh,
00:29:05.520
focusing only on completely disembodied and perverted values of Christianity.
00:29:09.700
But the desire, the, the, the fervor with which the, uh, many on the left have embraced
00:29:16.000
this, of course, reminds people of spirituality.
00:29:18.180
That's why so many of the new atheists, you know, uh, revile, we're reviling, reviling this
00:29:23.400
because they, they saw it as a surge of, of religion returning.
00:29:27.300
But I don't think that it can really be stopped at this point.
00:29:33.520
They, you have to be connected to, you know, uh, the metaphysical in, in a very real
00:29:42.920
And so if you can't find it in Christianity, you're going to find it somewhere.
00:29:45.960
So our larger society has invested itself in wokeness, has invested itself in progressive
00:29:52.600
Uh, but many who, as you point out, a lot of people saw the COVID, they saw, you know,
00:29:56.760
the, the, the consequences of this coming to their, their fruition.
00:30:00.200
And they realize, well, if I'm not going to be part of this spirituality, then I better
00:30:06.500
You, you, you can kind of feel that the, the, the thin, uh, edifice of kind of this,
00:30:11.500
this, uh, secular, uh, uh, front being, being broken, right?
00:30:16.180
Like we, Oh, we were going to have this moment where rationality is going to reign, where we
00:30:21.120
Everyone's just going to unify under this, you know, secular banner of understanding.
00:30:25.600
We'll get rid of all of these, you know, particular problems and moral conundrums.
00:30:30.260
And, you know, we'll, we'll just sweep it all into the rug and, and create the, this
00:30:36.300
It's cracking to where you, you, you, you know, you'll have the, the religious wokeness
00:30:40.920
or you can have Christianity or, or another sincere religious belief, but the idea that
00:30:46.180
you would just be hyper rational and completely, uh, neutral in the public square.
00:30:54.460
I actually live in an area that's pretty liberal and I have noticed since, so I moved in, uh,
00:31:08.820
Now I'm in, I'm in New York, I'm in upstate New York, but it's a very liberal area.
00:31:11.700
I noticed in that four year period that there was such an increase in the area that I'm in
00:31:18.220
right now in witchcraft and, uh, Eastern religion, that kind of thing.
00:31:23.800
I mean, there are, there's a brand new shops near my house that are explicitly for witchcraft
00:31:35.020
Uh, even at mainstream stores like Barnes and Noble, I went in and there was all these
00:31:39.020
book on, on casting spells, not in the section where you would normally, I suppose, find them.
00:31:44.120
If that kind of thing is sold, it's in the display case.
00:31:47.240
So, uh, that just tells me there is what you're saying.
00:31:50.400
There is a hunger for spirituality and it's going to be paganism of some variety, or it's
00:31:56.280
It's not going to be, uh, this neutral, we can all subscribe to the American creed and
00:32:06.060
And I think, um, this explains not just what we're talking about with celebrity conversions
00:32:10.960
and them getting tired of, uh, that world, but also some of the political things that
00:32:17.080
We have, uh, Christian nationalism, supposedly whatever that is.
00:32:21.700
But that really the, the low bar for that, I think is just conceiving of the nation or
00:32:27.140
the government in Christian terms that they should be self-conscious about Christianity.
00:32:31.080
That's starting to gain traction with more young people.
00:32:34.340
And I think it's, they realize looking around them, this multicultural thing does not work.
00:32:42.120
And, uh, so I'm glad that illusion is dissipating.
00:32:48.120
Uh, but, um, the question remains, is it going to be Christianity or is it going to be
00:32:52.920
And that's going to be a tug of war probably for decades to come.
00:32:56.380
Well, that really leads us to something that you were mentioning as well, which, you
00:33:00.280
know, I feel like Jordan Peterson's a little further down this, he's a little more complicated,
00:33:04.600
but in general, we have guys like Elon Musk, even Richard Dawkins has declared himself
00:33:11.720
You have these guys who really like Christian civilization.
00:33:15.560
They just wish they could get rid of all that messy Christianity.
00:33:18.820
I'll just cut these flowers on and I'll put them in a vase and they'll be alive forever.
00:33:23.280
You know, that, that, that's really been the understanding for some of these guys.
00:33:26.400
But then you have a guy like, uh, like Jordan Peterson, who I think does understand the deep
00:33:32.840
And while he, you know, his wife has made a very prominent conversion to a belief Catholicism,
00:33:37.840
uh, you know, and, and it's one of those scenarios where, well, he seems to be personally struggling.
00:33:43.180
And I don't know if you saw, there was a, there was an interview with him and, uh, I think it's,
00:33:50.220
I'm trying to remember his name, the country star, uh, but he like nail, he like nails
00:33:55.780
He's like, why are you running around on all this stuff?
00:33:58.980
You're either a Christian or you're not, you know, you need to be saved by Christ.
00:34:03.480
You're not like, it's not, you know, just, you know, and Peterson is doing his thing.
00:34:09.700
It's like, actually, no, specifically the Bible tells you it's not a private matter.
00:34:15.220
You know, it's, it, obviously he, he's got some own, his own personal struggles, but a
00:34:20.640
lot of people, you know, funny enough, many of the people in the, uh, mainstream evangelical
00:34:26.040
leadership, this kind of thing decry cultural Christianity.
00:34:31.580
You can't have cultural Christians because then maybe people aren't real converts.
00:34:35.420
And so what do you think about this, uh, this resurgence and people who aren't willing
00:34:39.440
to perhaps make the full commitment, but recognize that some level of cultural Christianity is
00:34:44.580
absolutely necessary for the continuation of things they hold dear.
00:34:48.560
It's like trying to throw out the lamp and then saying, I still want the light from it.
00:34:53.260
And I have noticed this, uh, with a lot of the research I've done on, uh, elite evangelicals.
00:34:59.960
They are very against, they tend to be very against cultural Christianity.
00:35:04.300
They tend to be very suspicious of Jordan Peterson.
00:35:07.100
I remember when he started getting big in 2017 or so, there were a number of articles that
00:35:12.500
dropped and things that were said by a bigger evangelicals about a concern they had, uh, that
00:35:24.640
And of course there were some wrong things in that, but I think what was missed, and this
00:35:29.540
is the, I lament this because this is a huge mistake that Christians made in positions of
00:35:36.580
authority, they, they wanted to correct the theology of Jordan Peterson and others who
00:35:45.740
were attracting young men towards more spirituality and religion.
00:35:50.720
And instead of asking the question, why are young men attracted to Jordan Peterson's presentation?
00:35:57.520
I think that would have been a good question to ask first, because I remember I was at a conference
00:36:02.340
a few years ago and there was an atheist, former atheist, I should say, who I sat down with.
00:36:06.960
And he told me that he had rejected atheism because of Jordan Peterson.
00:36:12.000
And I, he's from the Bible Belt, he's from North Carolina.
00:36:15.020
And so, I mean, there was no shortage of churches near him.
00:36:17.560
And I just said, why, why would that, why Jordan Peterson, when you literally are marinating in
00:36:22.960
a region where you had access to all kinds of Bible teaching.
00:36:26.960
And it really came down to this understanding of, uh, ordering chaos, Jordan Peterson talks
00:36:35.260
about a lot and just seeing that his life wasn't orderly and wanting to have some kind
00:36:41.140
of order in it for his kids who are young at the time.
00:36:44.880
And, um, I thought, well, that's very interesting.
00:36:48.720
And I started listening to some of what Jordan Peterson was saying in those lectures and in
00:36:51.960
other places, like his debates with, uh, Sam Harris.
00:36:55.400
And the thing that I picked up is, yes, he's, there are things that are wrong.
00:36:59.820
He's, uh, appeals to a lot of Jungian philosophical categories and he reads the Bible through that.
00:37:05.660
So when he talks about hell, for example, you make your own hell, it's a, the sum total of
00:37:10.560
And if they're bad decisions, then you will live in hell and that kind of thing.
00:37:15.200
It's not literal, uh, it's more figurative, um, and it, it is wrong.
00:37:21.180
It's, it's an error from a Christian perspective, but at the same time, he is picking out these
00:37:28.420
patterns in the Bible and these stories, and he's explaining them in ways that actually
00:37:34.100
do resonate with, especially young men that, Hey, you need to live a moral life.
00:37:44.020
There's big consequences when you don't live, uh, live to a higher standards.
00:37:51.960
There, there is examples of people doing this who were flawed throughout scripture.
00:37:56.680
Um, there was something about it that was different than I think the typical preacher,
00:38:03.960
the typical, uh, preaching formulas that young seminarians like myself were being told that
00:38:12.220
And, um, and Jordan Peterson just didn't follow any of that.
00:38:15.420
And there were some basic truths I think that got through despite the fact that yes, overall,
00:38:22.100
Uh, and so what I've seen with him on a personal level is he has gone from, uh, looking at the
00:38:28.520
Bible in these very figurative ways, psychological readings of it to now.
00:38:34.960
He's still doing some of that, but as his wife has converted to, I think Catholicism,
00:38:39.380
his daughter, I'm not sure if she's evangelical, but I know she's converted.
00:38:42.540
He seems to be starting to say things like, yeah, I think that if you went back in time
00:38:47.240
with the camera during the time of Christ resurrection, you would have seen him coming
00:38:53.940
Uh, so I look forward to seeing what's going to happen with him, but there's a direction
00:39:02.340
And, and this is where, uh, Christians in positions of influence, I think are missing
00:39:08.140
There, there is an opportunity waiting out there, but it's with people who are mostly disaffected
00:39:14.920
And they're starting to question things and they're the ones that need that message.
00:39:18.620
But instead of what they often get is you're a conspiracy theorist, you're a racist, you're
00:39:26.460
And then there's a, this third way approach, this Tim Keller risk approach where they, they
00:39:32.740
really want to make homosexuals and leftists and all these other groups that are mostly
00:39:40.060
Uh, and what they should have been doing is probably looking around and saying, okay, where
00:39:47.660
He was speaking to, um, more to a group that has a lot of harvest in it, a potential for
00:39:53.080
harvest and not trying to waste resources pursuing groups that, uh, you know, on an individual
00:39:59.960
level you can witness, but, you know, to, to change all your messaging, to try to make
00:40:03.820
the church more suitable for transgender people, for example, it's not going to win you a lot
00:40:10.420
So, um, I think that's the genius or at least the success behind Jordan Peterson.
00:40:14.360
And, um, I know online, if you go to YouTube and you type in, uh, like Jordan Peterson,
00:40:19.700
Christianity conversion, you won't just come up with videos about Jordan Peterson.
00:40:23.200
You'll come up with videos of people who have converted to Christianity legitimately.
00:40:32.800
God's used Jordan Peterson in ways he evangelists who want to be like Billy Graham, uh, aren't
00:40:41.740
I, I think it's important there because you talked about, you know, the church allocating
00:40:46.060
resources and of course that's part of it, but I don't think it's just the allocation
00:40:51.960
Ultimately, I think a lot of these people want Christianity to be this, you know, they
00:40:56.840
want Christianity to be acceptable to the groups that are considered elevated inside
00:41:03.880
They want Christianity to, uh, become this, uh, you know, uh, very open and, uh, you know,
00:41:11.280
a religion with no standards, a religion that's all understanding and love.
00:41:15.120
And there's no other, you know, which these things, you know, exist inside Christianity,
00:41:20.020
And as you pointed out, the reason Jordan Peterson spoke to a different crowd and inspired
00:41:24.660
a different crowd is a lot of what he was talking about was the things of Christianity
00:41:29.020
that drive you towards responsibility, that drive you to hierarchy, that drive you to
00:41:34.060
structure things that are very male coded, young, young males, particularly in Western
00:41:39.680
society, there's, they are spurred by that call.
00:41:44.020
They feel deep down, you know, they've been told that, well, you know, if you can just kind
00:41:48.300
of feminize yourself enough, if you can just, you know, you know, accept everything and lose
00:41:53.440
all hierarchy and, you know, drop all standards, eventually, you know, and the Christianity
00:42:00.720
And finally they were hearing, no, this is a Christianity that demands something of you.
00:42:04.780
Like we talked about previously, you know, a lot of these celebrities are converting.
00:42:08.420
And when they're converting, they're looking for a real church.
00:42:10.540
They're looking for Christianity that makes demands on them, that asks them to walk away
00:42:15.560
It's, you know, it's not, it's not just accepting you where you are, but realizing that you need to
00:42:23.540
And so I think that, you know, a lot of people, and again, you touched on this with Elon Musk,
00:42:28.500
have asked for a, a Christianity robust enough to defend itself.
00:42:32.260
That cares enough about itself and its civilization and its legacy, uh, and the people who are
00:42:37.880
supposed to be governed by it and nurtured by it, uh, to actually defend them and to, and
00:42:42.280
to, you know, in, in a way that you, the current, uh, very, again, Ted talk pastory version of
00:42:51.060
And so I think that's increasingly, if, if they have the courage, a direction, uh, that many,
00:42:56.420
uh, pastors could go to, again, like you said, harvest a field that is much more ripe, uh,
00:43:01.680
than, than simply lowering the bar as, as radically as possible to bring in a bunch of people who
00:43:06.520
are already accepted by society and don't need you because they are already bought into the
00:43:10.560
religion that does accept them and celebrates the life that they want to live.
00:43:14.760
Yeah, I think, I think a lot of pastors are stuck in like footloose world, right?
00:43:19.320
Where they, they think that like, everyone's trying to have fun and, uh, they almost have
00:43:24.100
to apologize if they're going to give you some kind of spiritual message that has law in
00:43:28.560
it or something that requires something of you.
00:43:33.380
I still sit, you know, I'm sitting in churches, I'm listening to messages and pastors are acting,
00:43:38.980
you know, it's been 40 years since footloose guys.
00:43:46.840
You don't have to be haunted by this image of we're going to be not cool.
00:43:51.460
You know, I'm going to be Jimmy Swaggart and then people will, will, will spit on me.
00:43:55.340
Like this is the, you know, this is the approach almost every pastor seems to take in these
00:44:00.920
And it's just amazing to me because like you said, this is not what is inspiring people.
00:44:05.660
This is not where you are, but people are acting as if they're still preaching against
00:44:10.140
the cultural understanding of Christianity from literally before they were born in many
00:44:16.180
And it shows you how deep the media penetrates into the minds of Christian leaders.
00:44:21.380
Um, I'm doing a talk in a few weeks at a men's retreat that we have coming up and, uh,
00:44:26.120
I'm talking on neo-evangelicalism, neo-evangelicalism.
00:44:29.120
Oftentimes we just call that evangelicalism now, but it is a distinct thing.
00:44:32.640
And most people, um, think that it started with a guy named Carl Henry, who wrote a book
00:44:37.940
called the uneasy conscience of modern fundamentalism in 1947.
00:44:41.840
And Carl Henry went on to, uh, be very influential.
00:44:44.820
He formed fuller theological seminary Christianity today, uh, was one of, I think he was one behind
00:44:50.500
that, or he was on the board, but that was a neo-evangelical operation.
00:44:53.640
Wheaton college, very evangelical, neo-evangelical.
00:44:56.600
And anyway, one of the things I'm going to be saying and the case I'm going to be making
00:45:00.260
is that this was all a big mistake because what you find in that book and, and really
00:45:04.620
the whole template that they were trying to put out there is that, you know, the fundamentalists,
00:45:11.880
And, uh, people are going to go to the psychologist.
00:45:14.620
They're going to go to, uh, the therapist and the political philosopher and all these other
00:45:18.900
experts in, and they're not going to come to the pastor and we've lost our influence.
00:45:25.500
So the fund, the fundamentalists are in error because they just want to keep pastors, pastors,
00:45:32.740
I'm obviously putting my own spin on this, but I'm summarizing what they wanted to do.
00:45:36.480
They wanted influence internationally, like not just regionally.
00:45:41.120
They wanted to, to create, to, to manufacture these international leaders that you could plop
00:45:50.320
They would, uh, I mean, Fuller was the first Christian seminary.
00:45:53.640
To, uh, have, uh, for psychology, um, certifications, um, to have like business leadership training,
00:46:02.540
So we're going to do all of this stuff to try to make our pastors and our churches,
00:46:07.640
what the world already wants, what people are already looking for.
00:46:22.580
Like they, they look at that as the worst thing ever, because if the media can paint you that
00:46:28.080
And they think they can game the system as if the media is going to somehow go like us
00:46:32.860
if we're just more like them or something, which never happens.
00:46:35.760
So you're better off just being a Christian and recognizing the fact that the world's
00:46:43.300
Uh, and, um, and then Jesus said, it hated me first.
00:46:46.760
And, uh, and just, you know, be true to Christian actual beliefs, Orthodox theology, look like
00:46:53.700
That's going to now, I think, attract a group of people who are looking for that structure.
00:46:57.780
And, and I'll say, I guess the last part here in the eighties and nineties, when I was growing
00:47:03.480
It was kind of like cool to be, to break standards, to be edgy, like the motorcycle guy with the
00:47:10.580
But the thing is now that we've lost any standard to fall back on, that's not cool anymore.
00:47:19.020
Like to the people who thought it was cool when there was this standard that you were,
00:47:24.080
uh, transgressing in some way that existed, that you could fall back on.
00:47:28.520
If you got into real trouble, it doesn't exist anymore.
00:47:37.360
I mean, now the rebels, the people who are against the status quo are the Christians.
00:47:46.660
Now that's saying, no, uh, I'm going to actually uphold standards.
00:47:52.060
It's, it's actually the prophet walking into town, uh, you know, for the first time in a
00:47:56.240
long time, there's always this, you know, as you were talking about, there's a little
00:48:00.160
bit at the beginning there, there's a little bit of the boomer eschatology, uh, you know,
00:48:04.440
layered into every interaction in, in American Christianity, where like America has a covenant
00:48:09.780
and all of our institutions have to be Christian forever.
00:48:13.240
Uh, because the only way the world could really end is if like American Christianity ends,
00:48:17.660
you know, like this, you know, like it, it, it sounds ridiculous, but this is how a lot
00:48:24.120
And I love actually treat Christianity as if these institutions are bound in, you know,
00:48:35.540
You don't, there, there's no, no maintenance required really, because they were founded in
00:48:39.440
Christianity and therefore they always will be.
00:48:41.260
And, you know, the, the, you know, the, the end of Christianity and the end of the United
00:48:46.140
And so there's just really no, no reason to understand them as, as anything that needs
00:48:50.200
to be enforced or reinforced or in any way actually bolstered.
00:48:54.560
And so you end up in this moment where all of this is atrophied and the entirety of our
00:48:59.140
society is built on the idea of rebelling against, against Christianity, which again,
00:49:04.120
they've forgotten, like they don't even, they don't even know who to hate anymore.
00:49:07.300
They just know they're supposed to hate something, John Lithgow somewhere.
00:49:10.480
They don't know anything about what John Lithgow believes.
00:49:12.680
They don't know anything about the standards that were being imposed.
00:49:14.980
They don't understand why he would push back against anything that's happening in the town.
00:49:18.740
They just know that you want to hate John Lithgow.
00:49:21.360
That that's that in footless, like that's the, that's the entire understanding of the
00:49:25.300
way that our, our, our kind of current culture operates.
00:49:28.140
And so, like you said, when you have these moments where so many of the leaders of churches
00:49:34.100
have been rushing again, like we both talked about to really turn themselves into the mass
00:49:39.400
Like they want to be part of the managerial regime.
00:49:44.880
I need to be able to, I need to be able to operate a corporation internationally at any
00:49:49.460
moment, because that's what God's word tells me to do.
00:49:53.160
You know, and like, this is how they approach it.
00:49:55.420
And they're all pressing themselves into this mold in the very moment when we actually need
00:50:02.340
Like in the very moment where the souls of Americans are crying out for something spiritual,
00:50:07.220
all of the spiritual leaders are trying to become businessmen, you know, that have optimum
00:50:11.480
PowerPoint presentations as quickly as possible.
00:50:14.380
Like that, that's what they're actually spending their time doing.
00:50:18.400
And I do like how you put it, where it does feel like, uh, you know, God is like, well,
00:50:24.500
Like, like, you know, like he's going to get all the glory because literally everyone who's
00:50:29.280
supposed to be doing it, everyone who's supposed to be harvesting these fields has been too busy
00:50:34.360
Well, the managerial elite attitude is, is often critiqued, uh, by like neoconservatives
00:50:40.000
or conservatives in general, when they say that, uh, you know, look at the paternalistic
00:50:43.920
way that they treat black people or minorities or something, you know, that, that the left
00:50:48.020
does this, these managers, there's something similar going on though, with Christian elites
00:50:52.100
where they do treat, uh, they do treat potential converts and even members of their own congregations
00:50:58.800
as children in a way that they will give them slop.
00:51:05.120
It's just, uh, you know, a nice talk, uh, some like I was, I'll, I'll pick, I'll, I'll
00:51:10.640
It's probably fine on this podcast to do this, but I was reading a JD Greer sermon the other
00:51:14.160
day, every sermon I've ever read by JD Greer has like, he leaves whatever text he's talking
00:51:20.740
Like he'll be like, open your Bibles, read this text.
00:51:22.580
And then he leaves it within about a paragraph.
00:51:25.220
And he's talking about some application that doesn't actually, it's not from the text, but it
00:51:30.740
really does, uh, it supports current notions of what it means to be loving.
00:51:37.000
So, you know, homosexuality, um, I was reading one, the one I was reading recently was about,
00:51:45.840
And if we don't actually meet people and talk to people that are different from us, then
00:51:52.080
But he used a text that had nothing to do with that.
00:51:56.040
It was like the Jews and the Gentiles and the differences between them when it comes to
00:52:00.800
And, and there's this condescending element there that you think your people aren't going
00:52:05.020
You can just pull one over on them and reconcile Christian messaging to what the world's already
00:52:12.580
And in so doing, you keep your congregation, you expand it.
00:52:16.960
Uh, and then you also don't have to suffer the possibility of getting canceled because the
00:52:21.980
world will look at your message or the people in power and they'll say, oh, that's what we're
00:52:29.080
And it's like convert or it's like, uh, parents when they want their children to convert or
00:52:35.600
their children, let's say did make a profession and then fell away in their teen years or something.
00:52:41.280
Like they, they have in their mind, like Johnny's going to come back.
00:52:44.760
Johnny, you know, I was, I was there when he prayed when he was six or whatever.
00:52:49.160
And yeah, I mean, he's, he killed three people and he's, you know, did all these horrible
00:52:55.160
But really the thing is, and I don't know how many parents have told me this, you can't
00:52:59.860
You can't go to Johnny and say, uh, that what you're doing is wrong.
00:53:10.960
And they're doing this on a mass level through their own technique.
00:53:19.660
And it's terribly condescending and I kind of resent it.
00:53:21.900
So when you hear Tucker saying, Hey, I just read the Bible for the first time and it's
00:53:28.840
So, so I want to ask you one more thing before we go to the questions of the people
00:53:33.980
Um, it's going to brush a controversy, but hopefully we can get to the actual, uh, the actual meat of
00:53:40.260
But recently Daryl Cooper, uh, who has been on the show several times, showed up on Tucker
00:53:44.840
Carlson, speaking of both of these guys and raised quite the kerfuffle when it came to
00:53:49.600
the fact that Winston Churchill, you know, uh, the history might not be quite as black
00:53:56.020
Now I'm just sad that they're not deconstructing Lincoln, but, uh, I said the same thing if
00:54:02.700
Um, but, uh, but that said, uh, yo, whatever people want to do about world war two revisionism,
00:54:09.980
this is not the debate we're going to have here today.
00:54:12.280
What I thought was really interesting was a lot of people, especially Christian leaders
00:54:17.000
or people who are, you know, in the Christian sphere, popular commentators who push a Christian
00:54:22.220
message very recently, who would sit through and have a conversation with every atheist who
00:54:27.520
would watch these people blaspheme everything that they hold dear and sacred would get into,
00:54:32.380
uh, you know, very civil debates with people who will just say the most foul, ridiculous
00:54:37.800
things about their own religion and characterize it, uh, and drag the things that they're supposed
00:54:45.880
These people who are more than willing to interact with and often gain clout from the fact that they're
00:54:51.720
willing to kind of, kind of truck with a lot of these guys lost their mind over the fact
00:54:57.360
that someone believes something they didn't about Winston Churchill. Again, I'm not here to defend
00:55:03.300
or whatever, like, you know, that's another episode. The point here is why, you know, all of these guys
00:55:10.380
seem to be way more religious and loyal to say a post-war consensus than they seem to be about their
00:55:17.780
Lord and savior. And, and it just very interesting to watch where there's this moment of, uh, you know,
00:55:24.060
we can debate anyone. We can, we can entertain any idea because we're, you know, very, very secure in our
00:55:30.140
faith. So we would never attack anyone for blasphemy. We would never attack anyone, uh, you know, for,
00:55:34.400
for any of this kind of stuff. However, the minute you question the role of a historical figure who has
00:55:40.200
nothing to do with Christianity at all, we're, we're going to come at you as if you would just
00:55:47.060
Yeah. I noticed that too. There's a lot of examples. Uh, one of the ones that I highlighted on X was, um,
00:55:52.760
a guy named Al Mohler who, uh, and he's spoken at NatCon. He's actually been, I saw, I saw a speech
00:55:57.840
at NatCon. You were there, you probably met him actually. Yeah. But, um, I've, I've studied a lot
00:56:02.760
of, uh, like what he said and done over the last 10 years, uh, at his institution politically. And
00:56:09.560
one of the things I just pointed this out is I could have probably picked a bunch of facts, but
00:56:13.700
he had a professor there that was critiquing Thomas Jefferson, right? Saying Thomas Jefferson
00:56:18.980
raped Sally Hemmings. And, um, he had a number of professors, including this one. This guy's name
00:56:23.940
was Curtis Woods, but they were all trafficking in critical race theory stuff blatantly. So, uh,
00:56:30.460
and one of them even said, uh, I think it was a provost, uh, Matt Hall said, uh, that he, uh,
00:56:35.560
was a racist and he couldn't help it cause he's white. And so this was all happening. And, um,
00:56:42.120
and that didn't raise an eyebrow, like, uh, until there was a lot of pushback against CRT. And then
00:56:47.160
he and other Southern Baptist leaders came together and they made a joint statement that
00:56:50.480
was vague, you know, it was against CRT, but it wasn't specific. Just like, we're still against
00:56:54.260
CRT, but it's still being trafficked in at some of our institutions, I guess.
00:56:58.500
And there, there was just nothing said, like you can, and this is the example, the parallel,
00:57:02.520
like you can say that about Thomas Jefferson all day, even though it is very likely not true.
00:57:07.380
The sources for that are really spotty. It was, you know, anti-Jefferson campaign stuff
00:57:13.320
that's being recycled. That wasn't, wasn't even taken that seriously at the time. Um,
00:57:19.020
so it's fine to do that to the guy who wrote our declaration of independence,
00:57:22.760
uh, very guy who founded, uh, really what amounts to American education at the university of
00:57:28.700
Virginia, the bill of religious freedom, all these amazing accomplishments that mean something
00:57:32.460
they should to Americans. Yeah. You can go deconstruct them all you want and no one bats an eye.
00:57:38.200
And I just thought that that was really telling. Uh, so I'm agreeing with everything you said.
00:57:42.100
There is a, I think a religious framework that a lot of these guys are working off of. If you want
00:57:48.720
to call it the post-war consensus or liberalism, cause I don't, I think a lot of them, you know,
00:57:53.560
it goes back to Lincoln too. You mentioned Lincoln and there there's other, but, but yeah,
00:57:57.540
it seems like after world war II, a lot of this coalesced and, uh, and now every single conflict
00:58:04.720
we have, there's always going, you're looking for your Hitler, for your Chamberlain and your
00:58:09.160
Churchill. Like those three roles have to be filled no matter what conflict it is. Uh, it could even be
00:58:15.380
a spiritual thing. Like it's not even a foreign policy thing. It's just, I I've heard pastors
00:58:19.900
talk about this when it comes to their own churches and it's always like the same three
00:58:22.780
figures. Um, I don't know why Stalin's not in there. He should be, but, uh, I think we know
00:58:27.080
why Stalin's not in there, but yeah, yeah, yeah. It's frustrating. And it just shows you there is a
00:58:31.200
mythology that seems to attract their allegiance more than the Bible itself. And that's a concern.
00:58:35.640
It's just one of those things when I, you know, like we're talking about that so much of the
00:58:40.540
Christian leadership, you know, including, you know, social media influencers or, or celebrities
00:58:46.520
that are, that are attached to these movements, uh, are just so desperate for the approval of these
00:58:53.060
mainstream sources, these institutions, these kinds of things there. I'm one of the good ones.
00:58:56.960
It's okay. Me and the David French brigade, you know, and, and so, uh, that they, that they'll
00:59:02.340
abandon any defense of their own actual Christianity, their own Lord, their own religion,
00:59:07.860
but they won't abandon the defense of the sacred figures of the current order, because that's,
00:59:13.700
that's what they actually want to please. That's who they actually want to be elevated by that.
00:59:17.740
That's the eyes in which they actually want to be seen as a virtuous. Um, and so I just,
00:59:22.360
I just thought it dovetailed interestingly with the fact that, you know, we, we have so much of this
00:59:27.500
happening outside of the church. So much of this happening outside of kind of formal institutions,
00:59:32.360
uh, like you said, you know, in a way, you know, God having to, to, in, in some ways,
00:59:37.380
shaming Christian leaders by bringing those, you know, uh, who are so far from Christ to him outside
00:59:43.540
of this, because so many of these guys are worshiping Winston Churchill or managerialism or
00:59:49.400
something that is not Christ, uh, you know, the, their next book, uh, as opposed to the, the,
00:59:54.580
the actual, uh, yeah, you can believe atheism and be platformed at like turning point USA's
00:59:58.900
pastors conference on all the shows. I won't name the person that you know, and I are both talking
01:00:03.320
about, but, uh, you can do that and it's acceptable, but you can't question Winston Churchill.
01:00:07.980
And that's crazy to me. That's nuts. Uh, not even, you know, John Locke wanted to punish atheists.
01:00:13.460
So it's like even the liberals wanted to punish atheists back in the day. Yeah. Classical liberals are
01:00:17.900
actually terrible at being, you know, classically liberal. That's basically to come by today's
01:00:23.140
standard. So, um, that exposes something about us that is deeply, deeply, uh, concerning. And I,
01:00:29.920
I kind of wish that interview hadn't happened now with the election coming up, but, uh, I am glad
01:00:34.440
Tucker exposed or, or the interview exposed some of that that shows where our true, like what,
01:00:40.740
what makes us tick and freak out like, cause it's not good. Yeah. And like I said, I think,
01:00:45.440
you know, there are guys like Greg Connolly, who's, uh, you know, uh, uh, Australian guy,
01:00:50.000
I believe who did a, you know, a good response to, to Daryl, you know, it's not that these are,
01:00:55.180
uh, not topics that you can actually have conversations. Well, it is that you can't
01:00:59.700
have conversations on them specifically because, and this is how we know they're religious. Like
01:01:03.600
this is how we know they're, what is actually valued. Because if, if you actually valued your
01:01:08.200
Christianity in the same way, you would assert the level of, you know, enthusiasm in its defense
01:01:13.500
that you, you know, you would assert to, uh, the stories around, you know, uh, Winston Churchill,
01:01:18.100
but all of a sudden, you know, that just not as important. All right, guys. Oh, sorry. Did you
01:01:23.580
have more to say on that before we move on? No, no, I, I, I could, but no, if you'd like to go
01:01:29.580
ahead. I just, like I said, like, I think you made a great point to Seth Dillon. I'll just leave it
01:01:32.640
there. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. So let's move over to the questions of the people here
01:01:37.120
before we do, John, I know you have books, movies, your man with, with much content,
01:01:42.600
tell people what you're doing, where to find it. Yeah, I appreciate that. Uh, in fact,
01:01:47.140
I think when I reached out, we were talking about promoting this, uh, 1607 project. And I've really
01:01:52.400
wanted to, uh, people to benefit from this, especially homeschoolers. Uh, this is the latest
01:01:57.120
documentary that I've produced and directed, and you can go to 1607project.com. It's a survey of
01:02:04.120
American history, but it really centers Jamestown and Virginia in the story in ways that I don't
01:02:09.360
think they're often centered. And we do talk about religion and cuisine and all the things that
01:02:13.200
really, uh, make us Americans and convey some identity and make us proud. And, uh, it refutes
01:02:19.820
the proposition nation myth. So, um, that's, that's one of the things I'm trying to promote as much as
01:02:24.400
possible right now. Uh, there's also a book by Brian McClanahan there. You can get, um, both of them,
01:02:29.720
obviously I recommend, uh, if you want to find out all about my other stuff, my other books,
01:02:33.740
podcasts, johnharrispodcast.com. Excellent. All right, let's go to our questions here.
01:02:40.060
Uh, Balthazar says the Catholic church has recognized our recent problems. Read up, uh,
01:02:45.920
read up the Vatican document on the new age, uh, Jesus Christ, the bearer of the water of life.
01:02:51.600
Uh, yeah, I'm not, I'm not super familiar with what the Vatican has been putting out. Obviously,
01:02:55.960
uh, Francis is a little difficult to follow. Um, I'm always told that he said something different
01:03:01.400
from what he actually has reported saying the media is a bunch of liars, so I'll give you the
01:03:06.100
benefit of the doubt, but I don't know. Uh, I don't know if you're familiar with any of what's
01:03:10.760
coming out of the Vatican there. I haven't read that document, but I have the same experience.
01:03:14.900
Every time he says something crazy, uh, like atheists are going to heaven or there was something
01:03:19.360
recently that he said about immigration, I think. Yeah. You have to welcome every immigrant that
01:03:23.180
you're rejecting immigration. Every, yeah. All the Catholic friends are like, you know,
01:03:26.580
either it doesn't matter or you don't understand or the media is. Yeah. So I,
01:03:30.580
I don't know what to say. I haven't read the document that, uh, your listener was talking
01:03:35.040
about there. Gotcha. Uh, creeper weirdo says the narrative has changed to Christianity is good
01:03:39.940
because it works for a lot of people. Have they ever considered that it works because it's good?
01:03:44.420
Yeah. And this is, uh, this is very interesting, uh, as well. You have a lot of these, uh, high,
01:03:49.660
these rationalists acceleration is, you know, uh, types, uh, the, the, um, try to, I'm trying to
01:03:57.060
remember the, the couple, uh, that, that, uh, is very pro natalism, uh, but they're trying to like
01:04:03.580
manufacture a religion, right? Like they, they, they only, they care about Christianity because it
01:04:07.920
allows, uh, society to function, but they're really just looking to optimize the functionality,
01:04:12.620
not actually explore the truth of the spirituality. Uh, what do you think about this, uh, the kind of
01:04:18.000
attempt by the hyper rational set realizing religion is necessary, but maybe we just to
01:04:22.660
make a better one. Well, Jordan Peterson, I think was, uh, is, or was a little like that because
01:04:28.180
that's, uh, it fulfills a psychological need that we have. Um, and I know he made a video not long
01:04:34.320
ago where he was encouraging Christians or people in Christian societies, I guess, to join a church,
01:04:39.760
but then he also made one for Muslims. And, uh, I, I think, I think it was Muslims and Christians.
01:04:45.000
I'm not sure if there was a third one in there, but I'm very sure there isn't. And people point
01:04:49.040
that out very, very often, but go ahead. Oh, there is just, it was just Muslims and Christians.
01:04:53.660
Just Muslims. Okay. I don't know why one major Abrahamic faith missing from, from a message to
01:04:57.820
anyway. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, um, I, I do think that, uh, if it's not true, then what's the point,
01:05:08.200
right? It's just, um, if it fulfills a social function, like it does, that's the truth. Like it does
01:05:13.740
fulfill a social function. And I think that people like Richard Dawkins do recognize, Hey,
01:05:17.920
wait a minute, maybe we should uphold this. But, uh, if it's not true, then like you could do that
01:05:23.760
about any fantasy, like, you know, Santa Claus upholds a social function. Why don't we believe
01:05:28.520
Santa Claus until we're old or, you know, why, why you could really come up with any myth that you
01:05:33.720
wanted to come up with. Um, so the Jesus said, he's the way, the truth and the life without truth.
01:05:40.540
Um, Christianity doesn't make any sense. And really all of eternity hinges on this. Where
01:05:46.160
are you going when you die? And, uh, that's a serious thing. That's what you need to think
01:05:49.940
about. That's what should attract people to Christianity primarily is having a relationship
01:05:54.400
with God and knowing where your eternal destination is. Well, and the magic, even for non-Christian
01:05:59.540
religions, you know, the, the magic of religion is, is the true belief. The fact that people were
01:06:04.820
willing to sacrifice, you know, society is a, is just the accumulation of low time preference
01:06:12.780
behaviors. And the reason you build low time preference behaviors is you understand that
01:06:17.440
there's a continuity to your existence, that there's something worth the next day that we
01:06:22.140
for giving, giving up what you have now for what will come later is valuable. And you can only
01:06:27.620
iterate that across games. If you recognize there's something greater than yourself, if everything
01:06:31.920
is just an instance of what benefits you, then you never get to the point where you're willing
01:06:35.840
to sacrifice on a larger scale. So even if you're just speaking about the functionality
01:06:41.240
of religion, purely the functionality comes, the magic comes because people are willing to
01:06:46.480
do pro-social behavior because they believe truly that there is something beyond themselves
01:06:51.340
worth sacrificing for a continuity of being that is worth placing, you know, the, the things
01:06:57.460
they have now into to the, towards the future. And so it's one of those things where, you know,
01:07:01.700
even if you want, even if you want to believe it's all miss, which it's not, but even if that's, you
01:07:06.940
want to believe the actual belief itself is what matters. Like you can't just, you can't just
01:07:11.220
manufacture it. That's not how it works. Uh, Robert Weinfeld, uh, Weinfeld says, uh, religion
01:07:16.580
and life is based on, uh, standards and obligations. Definitely true, sir. Uh, tiny Rick says,
01:07:23.320
these sorts of discussions are far and away my favorite on your channel. Keep them coming.
01:07:27.400
Well, thank you. Appreciate it. We try to provide a, uh, a good, uh, variety here. We do do some of
01:07:32.440
the politics of the day, but, uh, also, uh, want to make sure that we get this kind of topic and we
01:07:37.360
will be discussing, uh, the, the, the, uh, spring Springfield, Ohio, uh, you know, uh, great to not
01:07:43.800
replacement here on Wednesday though. So if you're looking for the, uh, for the news of the day,
01:07:48.300
that's also coming, uh, forging anvil here says careful Oren. This John guy has
01:07:52.880
suspicious friends. Uh, yeah. You know, you got to watch out, um, you know,
01:07:57.200
guilt by association, many dangerous people involved. All right, guys, you might have more
01:08:02.280
suspicious friends than me. Oh, I definitely have more suspicious friends.
01:08:06.080
But that, that, that is not a, not the question. All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and wrap
01:08:11.140
this up. Uh, want to thank John for coming on, make sure that you are checking out his work. He's
01:08:16.140
got his book. He's got, uh, the documentary, uh, he's got his X feed and of course his show
01:08:21.520
conversations which matter. You can start with some of the episodes I did over there. If you
01:08:25.200
haven't ever checked out his show before. And of course, if you're, if it's your first time on
01:08:29.220
this channel, make sure you subscribe on YouTube. You have to click the notifications and the bell
01:08:34.080
to make sure YouTube knows you actually want to watch the show when it goes live. Uh, if you'd like
01:08:38.180
to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you can do that by going to your favorite podcast platform and
01:08:42.500
subscribing to the Oren McIntyre show. And of course, if you'd like to pick up my new book,
01:08:46.960
the total state, you can do that on Amazon, Barnes and Noble books a million or order it
01:08:51.680
at your own local bookstore. Thank you everybody for watching. And as always, I will talk to you