The Auron MacIntyre Show - September 09, 2024


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

Word Count

13,236

Sentence Count

743

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

48


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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00:00:30.280 Hey everybody, how's it going?
00:00:32.240 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.
00:00:34.060 I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
00:00:37.700 A lot of people saw the Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand interview,
00:00:43.020 and it's very heavy on the spirituality.
00:00:46.620 A lot of people talking about the context of Brand's conversion to Christianity,
00:00:51.660 and he's just one of many high-profile stars that seems to have been on a spiritual quest
00:00:57.620 and found that Christianity is the place that they want to look.
00:01:01.680 I've been wondering, will this new string of celebrity converts have any impact on Christianity in the United States?
00:01:10.120 Does this say anything about Christianity, specifically evangelical Christianity inside America?
00:01:16.520 And do we need to be wary of celebrities?
00:01:19.620 There are obviously many examples of those who have had moments of seeming spiritual conversion,
00:01:24.760 but have fallen away and gone down a darker path.
00:01:27.680 Talking to me about that today is an author, he is a director,
00:01:31.420 and he's also the host of the Conversations That Matter podcast.
00:01:35.580 John Harris, thanks for joining me, man.
00:01:37.640 Thank you, Aaron. I definitely appreciate it, and I recommend your podcast to all my listeners regularly.
00:01:42.960 It's my favorite political podcast, so it's an honor to be with you.
00:01:48.260 Well, thanks, and it's been great to be on your show a couple times.
00:01:50.800 I had a great time every time we've had a conversation, so I'm really glad that you can come on here.
00:01:55.100 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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00:03:24.580 And book a call with Rolf today.
00:03:27.780 And before we start, guys, I want to remind you that, of course,
00:03:30.820 the first and possibly only debate between Donald Trump and the current candidate of the Democratic Party,
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00:04:40.520 All right, John.
00:04:41.320 So, like I said, I was watching this discussion between Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand,
00:04:47.700 both guys who have really ratcheted up their discussion of spirituality over the last few years.
00:04:54.980 Tucker Carlson has been a nominal Christian for a while,
00:04:57.720 but he said he really started reading his Bible.
00:04:59.340 He really started studying it, really started getting into it here over the last few years.
00:05:04.340 Russell Brand, somebody who led a very hedonistic lifestyle, quite famously,
00:05:09.800 in some cases even has accusations of possible sexual assault, these type of things.
00:05:15.700 You know, a very checkered past, to be sure.
00:05:19.200 But someone who seems to have dove very deep into this pool of first spirituality
00:05:25.500 and then actually moving to Christianity.
00:05:28.660 And he's far from alone.
00:05:29.820 I think of a lot of different people.
00:05:31.960 Obviously, you have guys like Kanye West that had very mixed results when it came to his very public conversion.
00:05:39.300 People like Candace Owens have been talking very publicly about their Christian faith.
00:05:44.060 You have even guys in the metal world, which I love, guys like Dave Mustaine,
00:05:49.060 who have been metal stars for many decades, have found at the end of the road that Christianity is something that they needed.
00:05:57.360 Guys like Alice Cooper, who have been on the road for a very long time, has been a committed Christian for a few decades.
00:06:01.820 But guys like Dave Mustaine have been kind of converting recently.
00:06:05.980 And with all of these prominent figures kind of declaring some level of conversion to Christianity,
00:06:12.600 I wonder what your thoughts are on whether kind of these celebrity conversions can have any real impact in society.
00:06:20.920 Do you think that they can speak to kind of a wider cry for a Christian revival?
00:06:26.960 Or is this something that's just a fashionable moment that these different celebrities are trying on?
00:06:33.460 Yeah, I think that we have seen movements before.
00:06:36.000 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.
00:06:50.360 But it didn't hurt them to be associated with it.
00:06:52.300 It was a positive thing.
00:06:53.300 It probably increased their fan base.
00:06:54.860 There was some benefit from it.
00:06:56.040 This is different.
00:06:57.820 This doesn't seem to be a great booster for your celebrity image.
00:07:04.860 Of course, Russell Brand is now finding an audience on the right that he didn't have before.
00:07:09.720 But he had a very large audience on the left.
00:07:12.640 And just broadly speaking, as an entertainer.
00:07:15.420 And you mentioned a number of other names.
00:07:18.240 I was also looking into this a little bit before we started the podcast.
00:07:22.180 Kat Von D last year.
00:07:23.940 She was a celebrity tattoo artist.
00:07:26.620 She was also into witchcraft.
00:07:28.040 She renounced all of that, got baptized.
00:07:30.000 And it's not even a big church that she's at.
00:07:33.020 She sings in the choir at some little Baptist church in Indiana.
00:07:36.100 Naila Ray recently, a pornographic actress who converted to Christianity.
00:07:41.560 She deleted her OnlyFans account.
00:07:43.380 She got rid of her immodest clothing.
00:07:45.240 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.
00:07:58.060 And they're willing to change fundamentally who they are.
00:08:01.860 And they don't care what the consequences are, if they lose money or lose popularity because of it.
00:08:07.320 Kanye West is maybe an exception to some of these things.
00:08:10.600 I think of revivals in history, if this is indeed the beginnings of a revival, which I'm not sure it is.
00:08:19.280 But there's always going to be false conversions and preachers who want to take advantage of movements and that kind of thing.
00:08:28.960 So to see Kanye kind of vacillate and go in different directions doesn't surprise me.
00:08:34.580 He's done that his entire career.
00:08:36.240 It's disappointing, I suppose, that now he's saying that he is God and he's got problems with Jesus.
00:08:40.260 And it looks like his conversion wasn't necessarily authentic.
00:08:44.160 But a lot of these other guys do have authentic conversions.
00:08:47.400 And one of the things that ties some of them together, there's two things that I see.
00:08:52.520 You have guys who in 2020 realize something is wrong.
00:08:56.220 I said, probably a lot of people listening to your podcast are from that group, whether they're Christians or not.
00:09:02.040 They just realize something's broken.
00:09:03.760 Our political framework doesn't work.
00:09:06.000 What I thought about religion doesn't seem to be right.
00:09:08.620 Nothing seems to be right in my assumptions.
00:09:10.940 And they're going back to the drawing board.
00:09:13.560 And in this vein, I think of Josh Timonen, who was a former assistant of atheist Richard Dawkins.
00:09:18.840 He actually set up the North American website for Richard Dawkins.
00:09:23.240 I was going to say his ministry.
00:09:24.220 He's an atheist.
00:09:25.360 He doesn't have a ministry.
00:09:26.300 But I mean, yes, he does.
00:09:27.720 But he does.
00:09:28.920 Right.
00:09:29.160 That's yeah.
00:09:29.780 Yeah.
00:09:30.080 He's his own in his own religion.
00:09:32.240 But but Josh Timonen was living in Portland, Oregon in 2020.
00:09:36.460 And it got so bad there.
00:09:38.260 He had to leave and he moved to Waco, Texas.
00:09:40.460 And then him and his wife wanted friends.
00:09:42.860 So they end up going to this cowboy church in Waco.
00:09:45.780 And if you think of like a populist church setting, if you're looking for something more
00:09:50.820 populist than a Baptist church, I suppose it would be the cowboy church.
00:09:54.920 And he gets converted, baptized, rejects atheism.
00:09:59.500 Same thing with J.P. Spears.
00:10:01.100 He moves.
00:10:01.520 I think it's from San Francisco, if I'm not mistaken, to Texas as well.
00:10:06.200 And he was more on the left.
00:10:08.860 Now he is definitely more on the right.
00:10:11.840 He's a comedian on YouTube.
00:10:14.700 So 2020 forced some issues in their own minds that they had to reckon with.
00:10:20.000 And so I do see that vein.
00:10:21.440 I also see people who are just higher to the degeneracy.
00:10:25.620 And I think Kat Von D and Nayla Ray probably fit into that category where they're just spent.
00:10:31.440 They're at the end of themselves.
00:10:32.820 They've tried all the world's pleasures at the Vanity Fair and they've decided that it's
00:10:38.100 not fulfilling.
00:10:39.140 And in both cases, I think they had a Christian background when they were growing up.
00:10:44.380 So they actually had something to tap back into.
00:10:46.780 And so they returned to that.
00:10:49.060 But with a brand new conversion, I mean, that's what they're saying.
00:10:52.420 They're saying that they've actually converted.
00:10:54.000 So does this have significance?
00:10:56.140 I think so.
00:10:56.740 I think it's probably the product of forces.
00:11:00.060 Historians will look back if this gets bigger and see the forces that contributed, such as
00:11:04.940 what happened in 2020.
00:11:06.740 We did that actually right now with the First Great Awakening.
00:11:09.220 Historians look back and they see different things that took place.
00:11:12.560 There is a desire to bind the colonies because they were so diverse that we had the rise of
00:11:17.020 commercialism and people who were worried about that.
00:11:21.240 And so there were these historical forces that may have contributed to that particular
00:11:24.960 Great Awakening.
00:11:26.520 But there's also a spiritual side to it.
00:11:28.440 I know you're a Christian.
00:11:29.280 I'm a Christian.
00:11:30.120 And I think that people legitimately do repent of their sins, put their trust in Christ and
00:11:35.540 come to a saving knowledge of Jesus.
00:11:37.760 And this is a real thing that happens.
00:11:39.440 It's a real thing that God can also ordain on a larger level.
00:11:43.080 And if you think about celebrities and what they represent in our culture, they have a
00:11:48.500 tremendous amount of influence.
00:11:49.700 They did not in ancient cultures or even in medieval cultures.
00:11:53.420 The court jester was the court jester, right?
00:11:55.820 He wasn't someone that you would look up to as an example necessarily.
00:12:00.420 But our heroes now are celebrities, actors, music artists, that kind of thing.
00:12:06.660 And so I think that it's I don't know if it's a parallel equivalent, but it is similar in
00:12:11.880 my mind to Paul when he argues before King Agrippa in Acts.
00:12:17.000 And King Agrippa says, you're going to you're going to convince me to convert if you keep
00:12:22.320 talking.
00:12:23.440 Well, King Agrippa was someone in authority who obviously had civil authority, which is
00:12:27.000 a little different.
00:12:27.560 But I think that in conversions throughout history, mass conversions, revivals, those kinds
00:12:34.000 of things, you eventually see the upper classes start to make this change as well.
00:12:41.080 And so it would be I think it would be necessary if you wanted to see a fully fledged Christian
00:12:45.680 culture civilization, you would need people.
00:12:48.580 You would either need a new class or you would need people in the current leadership class
00:12:52.840 to make some serious changes.
00:12:55.160 And we've seen some of that.
00:12:56.840 And that is an encouraging thing.
00:12:58.780 Yeah, I want to pick out two big things there that I think are really important.
00:13:02.280 And you were talking about there first, like you said, there have been popular movements
00:13:06.860 like this before.
00:13:07.600 The Jesus movement is one that comes to mind.
00:13:10.540 And, you know, the seeker centered church kind of comes out of, I think, a lot of this
00:13:15.320 right.
00:13:15.620 A lot of the idea that you have to be super open, that the church is there to cast as
00:13:20.620 wide a net as possible, to have the lowest bar of entry as possible.
00:13:24.440 And a lot of that came in a moment, as you're talking about, where probably many of the
00:13:30.520 celebrities that jumped aboard of that or are involved in that really got the benefit
00:13:36.680 of a culture that was still Christian, that still embraced Christianity, which still saw
00:13:41.240 their conversion as something that was positive.
00:13:43.920 It was still them moving towards the mainstream and not the other way around.
00:13:48.180 Today, as you point out, a celebrity who is abandoning that lifestyle, you think of a guy
00:13:54.760 like Rob Halford from Judas Priest, like obviously, you know, in metal, you know, a guy who's been
00:14:00.600 an open gay man for a very long time, you know, has tasted, I'm sure, every pleasure and, you know,
00:14:06.260 and I know from things of his personal life has tasted all of the horrible consequences of many
00:14:11.800 of decisions like that.
00:14:12.880 And they get to the end of this thing and they recognize, you know, I've lived this life
00:14:18.700 that was supposed to be amazing.
00:14:20.100 I've lived this life that was the mainstream is sold to me, that I was an icon inside of.
00:14:24.400 And there's really nothing there at the end of the day.
00:14:27.060 I'm, you know, I'm getting older.
00:14:28.480 I recognize that I don't have the things that matter in life.
00:14:30.900 I don't have the things that actually make me a complete person, that there's still a hole
00:14:35.360 in my life ultimately.
00:14:37.120 But that conversion now does not come with that cachet.
00:14:40.280 In fact, it is very countercultural in a way that did not exist when you had the Jesus
00:14:45.520 movement going.
00:14:46.540 Also, many of the people who are making these conversions and not all of the ones we listed
00:14:50.580 here, some of them, you know, Kanye West obviously was famously at like Joel Osteen's church.
00:14:56.160 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.
00:15:09.100 It's not just your most basic level, you know, just clear the bar Christianity is what I'm
00:15:15.120 trying to say.
00:15:16.020 And so it's very interesting that, you know, people are making that conversion.
00:15:19.940 And when they're making that conversion, they're specifically doing it because it requires more
00:15:24.360 of them, because it requires them to maybe be more aesthetic or deny themselves or, you
00:15:29.520 know, do something that is much better for them spiritually and physically.
00:15:33.320 But also, as you said, these are often leaders in a way that sadly is the case, you know,
00:15:40.900 today that, you know, back in Rome, actors had a much different reputation.
00:15:46.020 But these people are people who do have a lot of influence.
00:15:49.980 And of course, we know, you know, from the story and spread of Christianity, that is very
00:15:53.740 often, you know, the leaders of households or the leaders of tribes, entire kings with,
00:15:58.480 you know, with their entire kingdom, their entire principality would convert because of
00:16:03.440 the leader.
00:16:04.080 So very interesting that we're seeing a step away from the popular culture against the
00:16:07.880 grain, people paying a cost, moving to forms of Christianity that are more demanding.
00:16:12.500 And possibly because they kind of have that popular power, that cultural power that you're
00:16:19.760 talking about, have the ability to cascade this because they have that ability to lead and
00:16:25.180 bring people along with them when they make that choice.
00:16:28.360 Yeah, absolutely.
00:16:29.940 I think of even Elon Musk, who's tweeted out some things.
00:16:32.940 I don't know that he's converted to Christianity, but he's said very positive things about Christianity.
00:16:37.900 And he sees the need for, I think, what did he call it?
00:16:41.140 An aggressive Christianity or a Christianity that defends itself recently with the Olympics
00:16:46.160 opening ceremony.
00:16:47.880 And I think that a lot of people are realizing that if Christianity goes, so does everything else.
00:16:54.300 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
00:17:05.360 consequences to that.
00:17:06.500 So even people who aren't Christians, but are somewhat thoughtful, I think, can see the
00:17:11.120 consequences of this.
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.
00:17:29.700 Maybe they weren't legitimate in every respect, but they had to pretend if they weren't.
00:17:34.840 And I think today, when this actually dovetails with your book to some extent, when we think
00:17:42.120 of the society that we've created, it's very much based on personal choice, individual freedom,
00:17:48.620 expanding that as much as we possibly can, getting rid of mediating institutions that
00:17:54.780 would limit that so that there's a state that will even fund your freedom if you want to
00:17:58.700 go do sinful things.
00:18:01.380 And I think really what's happened is that's train wrecking right in front of our eyes.
00:18:07.080 People are seeing that without some ordered liberty, you don't actually have liberty.
00:18:10.720 It's fake.
00:18:11.700 It doesn't work at all.
00:18:13.900 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
00:18:25.980 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.
00:18:34.920 It doesn't mean that it's artificial.
00:18:36.500 I'm saying that I think this is actually a means that God can use.
00:18:39.480 And one of the things I've noticed growing up, and this is maybe where there's a disconnect
00:18:44.300 between the current Christian Big Eva or Christian industrial complex, if you want to call it
00:18:50.560 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
00:19:07.700 Israel did.
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.
00:19:19.520 That's what they think, at least.
00:19:20.440 I don't think there's a source for this, but they'll say he did.
00:19:23.180 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.
00:19:29.740 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
00:19:45.420 part of the deal.
00:19:46.040 And the reason we have people like Biden in office is because we didn't honor our part
00:19:50.660 of the deal.
00:19:51.080 So all our consequences trace back to some kind of infidelity.
00:19:53.940 And so if we start keeping his law again on a popular level as a corporate body, we will
00:20:00.140 eventually see good times again.
00:20:03.420 And the religious right has functioned this way more or less, I think, for at least 30
00:20:08.200 or 40 years.
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.
00:20:21.080 It's brand new.
00:20:22.160 Um, they're outside of the Christian industry.
00:20:26.860 They're outside of the church.
00:20:28.680 They're not Christian celebrities.
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.
00:20:58.820 And I, I just think that's interesting.
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
00:21:08.920 the strong.
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.
00:21:18.100 Uh, Russell Brand.
00:21:19.960 I, last time I heard Russell Brand, he was arguing with Peter Hitchens about legalizing
00:21:24.100 marijuana and other substances.
00:21:27.540 Now he's on Tucker praying beautiful prayers and no one gets credit for that in the church.
00:21:32.980 I think that's the wonderful thing.
00:21:34.080 No, no, uh, none of the pharisaical characters and none of, uh, the Christian industry types
00:21:39.660 can actually take credit for Russell Brand.
00:21:42.080 Only God can take credit for Russell Brand.
00:21:44.160 And I think that's the way he likes to, uh, to work.
00:21:47.540 Yeah, that's powerful in a lot of ways.
00:21:49.720 I want to, so, uh, I want to break that out in a couple of pieces there because, uh, I
00:21:54.220 think it's important.
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
00:22:16.820 at God anymore.
00:22:17.540 Right.
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
00:22:25.680 in our own image.
00:22:26.500 We'll completely abandon spiritual traditions.
00:22:28.620 We can be a completely materialist man.
00:22:30.740 At the end of that, the postmodern is, is almost a moment of, we, we've forgotten even
00:22:35.900 what we were rebelling against, right?
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.
00:22:46.580 That zeitgeist 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,
00:22:58.120 have never.
00:22:58.820 All they know is that it wasn't cool to be a Christian, that you were supposed to sneer
00:23:02.720 at it, but they've never read the Bible.
00:23:04.600 They've never really heard anything about it.
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
00:23:18.320 it at all.
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
00:24:13.020 and all of its beliefs.
00:24:14.720 And they can't, like you said, they can't claim any of this because the people coming are,
00:24:19.320 are so, you know, so disconnected.
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.
00:24:29.760 Yeah.
00:24:29.880 When I went to seminary, I remember this wasn't implicitly, uh, told us that I can remember,
00:24:35.500 but it was implied.
00:24:37.200 It was in the water.
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.
00:24:46.200 That's a huge thing right now.
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
00:24:56.760 to come in that kind of thing.
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
00:25:14.440 Seminary, which is a Southern Baptist school.
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
00:25:26.840 and it was all branding, right?
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.
00:25:48.280 I'm like, well, isn't, is it still a church?
00:25:50.480 Like there's not water running through it, right?
00:25:52.160 No, it's a, it is a church.
00:25:53.460 We, we just dropped the church and that's, that's what's happening in every way.
00:25:58.200 We don't want to look like a church.
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
00:26:11.000 stuff.
00:26:11.600 We don't want cemeteries that would remind people of death.
00:26:14.140 And that's bad.
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
00:26:45.180 not a church.
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
00:27:00.200 churches.
00:27:00.700 They don't want a strip mall that gives you a Ted talk.
00:27:04.080 They actually want a church.
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
00:27:20.340 stand out.
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?
00:27:26.880 You can go see a therapist.
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
00:27:54.740 up instead of pointing people to themselves.
00:27:57.560 And I think that, uh, these celebrity conversions are, uh, whether it's in, they interpret it
00:28:04.020 this way or not because they're seeking that.
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
00:28:21.400 Italian leather handbag.
00:28:22.820 Is that from winners?
00:28:24.000 Ooh, or that beautiful silk skirt.
00:28:26.520 Did she pay full price or those suede sneakers or that luggage or that trench, those jeans,
00:28:32.240 that jacket, those heels.
00:28:33.920 Is anyone paying full price for anything?
00:28:36.800 Stop wondering, start winning.
00:28:39.000 Winners find fabulous for less.
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
00:28:57.500 is itself a surrogate religion.
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.
00:29:30.300 The, the, the human is a spiritual being.
00:29:33.520 They, you have to be connected to, you know, uh, the metaphysical in, in a very real
00:29:39.500 way.
00:29:39.800 You simply are not built to, to go without it.
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
00:29:51.100 secular humanism.
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
00:30:05.340 find another one.
00:30:06.300 Right.
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
00:30:19.660 were going to get rid of religion.
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
00:30:33.780 secular, uh, world.
00:30:34.920 And that's all coming apart.
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.
00:30:51.120 Is really collapsing before our eyes.
00:30:53.280 Oh yeah.
00:30:54.180 Yeah.
00:30:54.460 I actually live in an area that's pretty liberal and I have noticed since, so I moved in, uh,
00:31:02.880 20 now 16, I think it was.
00:31:05.300 And I was away for four years.
00:31:06.640 I came back and I went to a Bible bed area.
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
00:31:30.240 and there's no shame in it.
00:31:31.700 I mean, it's a, it's a really cool thing.
00:31:33.180 It's really interesting.
00:31:33.920 People are getting into it.
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
00:31:54.960 going to be Christianity.
00:31:56.280 It's not going to be, uh, this neutral, we can all subscribe to the American creed and
00:32:03.840 every religion will just be able to live here.
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
00:32:15.520 are going on, which you talk about a lot.
00:32:17.080 We have, uh, Christian nationalism, supposedly whatever that is.
00:32:21.500 Right.
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.
00:32:39.900 There is no neutrality really.
00:32:42.120 And, uh, so I'm glad that illusion is dissipating.
00:32:44.540 I think it's good.
00:32:45.280 It needs to go.
00:32:46.500 It never was real.
00:32:48.120 Uh, but, um, the question remains, is it going to be Christianity or is it going to be
00:32:52.380 paganism?
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
00:33:09.060 a cultural Christian at this point.
00:33:11.480 Right.
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.
00:33:18.100 Right.
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
00:33:30.720 Christian roots of the West.
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,
00:33:48.140 uh, rich, uh, is it John rich?
00:33:50.220 I'm trying to remember his name, the country star, uh, but he like nail, he like nails
00:33:55.000 Peterson down.
00:33:55.780 He's like, why are you running around on all this stuff?
00:33:58.160 It's pretty simple.
00:33:58.980 You're either a Christian or you're not, you know, you need to be saved by Christ.
00:34:02.480 You're, you're a sinner.
00:34:03.480 You're not like, it's not, you know, just, you know, and Peterson is doing his thing.
00:34:08.080 Well, I think it's kind of a private matter.
00:34:09.700 It's like, actually, no, specifically the Bible tells you it's not a private matter.
00:34:13.820 So that's just not true.
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.
00:34:29.920 Cultural Christianity is a terrible thing.
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.
00:34:48.240 Yeah.
00:34:48.560 It's like trying to throw out the lamp and then saying, I still want the light from it.
00:34:52.340 You can't.
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
00:35:19.060 this guy was wrong theologically.
00:35:21.060 He started, uh, doing his Genesis lectures.
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.
00:36:47.120 I didn't, I hadn't listened to it.
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
00:37:10.020 your decisions.
00:37:10.560 And if they're bad decisions, then you will live in hell and that kind of thing.
00:37:13.940 So he does these kinds of things.
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.
00:37:40.960 I am going to call you to a higher standard.
00:37:43.680 Guess what?
00:37:44.020 There's big consequences when you don't live, uh, live to a higher standards.
00:37:49.120 Um, you can do this.
00:37:50.660 There's encouragement in it.
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
00:38:09.860 we, that this is what will attract people.
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,
00:38:19.880 there, there's a lot of error there.
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.
00:38:33.300 I don't know exactly where he's at.
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
00:38:51.340 out of an empty tomb.
00:38:52.220 It's not just figurative.
00:38:53.940 Uh, so I look forward to seeing what's going to happen with him, but there's a direction
00:38:58.560 he's moving in.
00:38:59.460 And I see, I feel that pull on the right.
00:39:02.340 And, and this is where, uh, Christians in positions of influence, I think are missing
00:39:07.560 the boat.
00:39:08.140 There, there is an opportunity waiting out there, but it's with people who are mostly disaffected
00:39:13.500 because of what happened in 2020.
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
00:39:23.100 a sexist.
00:39:23.920 They get batted down all over the place.
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
00:39:38.340 on the left feel comfortable.
00:39:40.060 Uh, and what they should have been doing is probably looking around and saying, okay, where
00:39:43.280 are the harvest fields right for harvest?
00:39:45.860 That's what Jordan Peterson tapped into.
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
00:40:07.480 of conference.
00:40:08.560 It's, uh, it's just not.
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.
00:40:27.780 Oh yeah.
00:40:28.080 Because of thousands of people at least.
00:40:30.280 Yeah.
00:40:30.520 Yeah.
00:40:31.400 Yeah.
00:40:31.940 Amazing.
00:40:32.800 God's used Jordan Peterson in ways he evangelists who want to be like Billy Graham, uh, aren't
00:40:38.320 being used, which is just amazing.
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
00:40:49.960 of resources.
00:40:50.600 And I'm sure you'll agree with this.
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
00:41:02.720 the current regime.
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,
00:41:18.460 but there's a lot more to it.
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
00:41:58.800 was just an extension of this.
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
00:42:13.700 from something that has them to be different.
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
00:42:20.340 become something new, uh, in Christ.
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
00:42:48.580 Christianity simply does not do.
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.
00:43:31.360 This is amazing to me.
00:43:32.400 This still happens.
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.
00:43:43.420 It's okay.
00:43:44.540 Like you, you, you, you can move on.
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
00:44:00.460 situations.
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
00:44:15.120 cases.
00:44:16.060 Yeah.
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,
00:45:09.380 the fuddy duddies, they're not cool.
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.
00:45:22.680 Bad.
00:45:22.840 They used to come to pastors.
00:45:23.640 Now they're coming to all these other things.
00:45:25.500 So the fund, the fundamentalists are in error because they just want to keep pastors, pastors,
00:45:30.300 but we're going to trick everyone.
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
00:45:45.520 into any like suburban or urban environment.
00:45:48.060 And these guys would be therapists.
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,
00:46:01.020 but for pastors, right?
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.
00:46:12.040 And we're going to lose what makes us unique.
00:46:14.980 And we're coming to the end of that, I think.
00:46:17.620 Uh, and it is footloose.
00:46:19.140 I mean, it really is.
00:46:19.940 They, that's like the, the shrieking.
00:46:22.580 Like they, they look at that as the worst thing ever, because if the media can paint you that
00:46:26.000 way, then you'll never have any influence.
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
00:46:41.740 going to probably hate you.
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
00:46:52.740 a Christian.
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
00:47:02.620 up in the nineties, right.
00:47:03.480 It was kind of like cool to be, to break standards, to be edgy, like the motorcycle guy with the
00:47:08.940 leather, you know, he was the cool edgy.
00:47:10.580 But the thing is now that we've lost any standard to fall back on, that's not cool anymore.
00:47:17.520 Like that world was cool.
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.
00:47:32.180 Uh, there is no standard really.
00:47:34.640 So what do you even rebel against?
00:47:37.360 I mean, now the rebels, the people who are against the status quo are the Christians.
00:47:42.960 It's the preacher from the footloose.
00:47:45.680 That's the actual rebel.
00:47:46.660 Now that's saying, no, uh, I'm going to actually uphold standards.
00:47:50.120 You guys don't have them.
00:47:51.620 Yeah.
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
00:48:22.160 of people, many of whom are dear to me.
00:48:24.120 And I love actually treat Christianity as if these institutions are bound in, you know,
00:48:29.240 into like Christian doctrine in perpetuity.
00:48:32.040 Uh, you, you never need to, uh, revivify them.
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
00:48:45.020 States are coterminants.
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
00:49:38.620 managers, right?
00:49:39.400 Like they want to be part of the managerial regime.
00:49:41.380 I need a business degree.
00:49:42.540 I need a, I need, I need a psychology degree.
00:49:44.220 I need credentials.
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
00:50:01.480 spiritual leadership.
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.
00:50:16.540 And so there's really this moment.
00:50:18.400 And I do like how you put it, where it does feel like, uh, you know, God is like, well,
00:50:22.840 fine, I'll just do it myself.
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
00:50:33.220 trying to please the world.
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.
00:51:02.140 Like it's not even like deep messaging.
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
00:51:10.160 say his name.
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
00:51:20.400 about.
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,
00:51:42.140 um, uh, God wants to integrate the world.
00:51:45.840 And if we don't actually meet people and talk to people that are different from us, then
00:51:50.020 we'll stop God's plan of integration.
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
00:51:59.520 the law.
00:51:59.960 Right.
00:52:00.800 And, and there's this condescending element there that you think your people aren't going
00:52:04.380 to notice this.
00:52:05.020 You can just pull one over on them and reconcile Christian messaging to what the world's already
00:52:11.380 trying to do.
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
00:52:25.080 doing too.
00:52:25.580 I think that's, um, terrible though.
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.
00:52:39.600 What do the parents often do?
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
00:52:53.100 things, but you know, Johnny's coming back.
00:52:55.160 But really the thing is, and I don't know how many parents have told me this, you can't
00:52:59.300 judge him.
00:52:59.860 You can't go to Johnny and say, uh, that what you're doing is wrong.
00:53:04.440 You have to attract, uh, him with honey.
00:53:08.200 You have to be nice.
00:53:09.140 You have to make it palatable and acceptable.
00:53:10.960 And they're doing this on a mass level through their own technique.
00:53:15.580 And, um, and it's terribly, it is managerial.
00:53:18.620 It's exactly what you just said.
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
00:53:25.640 great.
00:53:26.080 It's so refreshing to hear that.
00:53:27.900 It is.
00:53:28.420 Yeah.
00:53:28.840 So, so I want to ask you one more thing before we go to the questions of the people
00:53:32.140 here real quick.
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
00:53:39.200 it.
00:53:39.320 I don't want to get stuck there.
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
00:53:53.960 and white as, as, as everyone remembers it.
00:53:56.020 Now I'm just sad that they're not deconstructing Lincoln, but, uh, I said the same thing if
00:54:01.200 you had to pick one guy.
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
00:54:43.040 to hold holy and sacred, uh, through the mud.
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
00:55:45.200 desecrate at the temple.
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
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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
01:08:56.100 next time.