The Auron MacIntyre Show - Foreign Gods Are Invading Texas ｜ Guest： Ronald Dodson

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00:00:17.540 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with

00:00:21.940 a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy. Before we get started, I wanted to let you

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00:01:31.860 tickets. That's fearlessrollcall.com. Well, guys, we've heard, don't mess with Texas. Don't try this

00:01:40.200 in Texas. Texas is one of the quintessentially American places in this great union. And yet at the

00:01:47.060 moment, we see foreign gods being erected in Texas, a Muslim community being founded in Texas, a giant

00:01:55.620 Hindu statue, what we used to call an idol in the middle of Texas. What is happening in one of the

00:02:02.160 most American places in America? Joining me to talk about this today is Ron Dotson. He is heavily

00:02:08.940 involved in the investment world, and he often writes on theological and geopolitical issues. Ron,

00:02:15.480 thanks for coming on, man. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.

00:02:19.800 Of course. Before we jump into the topic at hand, a lot of people probably won't be familiar with your

00:02:24.580 work, but you do some great writing, especially over at the American Reformer. Could you tell people

00:02:28.580 a little bit about your background and how you got into writing about these issues?

00:02:33.520 Well, I'm in the hedge fund business, and I manage a family office, and I've done that since

00:02:39.320 since grad school, so the mid-90s, but it's a lot of staring at squiggly lines all day, so you have

00:02:47.360 an immense amount of time to read. In grad school, I got very interested in not only theology, but the

00:02:54.800 intertestamental period, manuscript evidence, philosophy of that time period, so mainly the

00:03:03.540 Socratics. I just really never stopped. I taught myself how to read Greek. I'd taken five years of

00:03:13.060 Latin in school, and so I had a little bit of the background to do it. Like my buddy, Daryl Cooper,

00:03:22.040 who can't stop reading about history, I just couldn't stop reading about these matters. I got

00:03:28.860 encouraged a couple of years ago to really step out and start writing by my business partner, who

00:03:36.140 your audience probably knows, a guy named Nate Fisher, who's one of my dear friends, and said,

00:03:41.540 hey, you know, you think and speak often about these things. You ought to do some writing, and we have

00:03:47.260 American Reformer as a partner organization, so I started writing for there, and then I just, this

00:03:52.560 past couple of weeks, got picked up by Claremont and have written for the American Mind now,

00:03:58.580 and so there's been some neat response to it. God has been very gracious in giving me a little

00:04:08.600 bit of an audience. Hopefully, I'm faithful with that. Absolutely. Well, we're going to dive into

00:04:14.160 what's happening in Texas because you, of course, are based out of Texas, and what's your perspective

00:04:19.080 on the matters that are unfolding there, but before we do, guys, let's hear from today's sponsor.

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00:05:20.040 that's at W-I-L-L-H-I-L-D on X. All right, Ron, so I think one of the real problems that the right,

00:05:31.580 the conservative movement, if you will, though I'm often not a huge fan of the term conservative,

00:05:36.800 but the general right-wing move in the United States is on a bit of an upswing. Obviously,

00:05:43.460 we see Donald Trump's victory. We see his early success in some of his projects. A lot of people

00:05:50.120 are invigorated by this. They're emboldened by this. We see a lot of people talking about the

00:05:54.780 importance of Christianity and how it's foundational to the reality of our United States and its

00:06:02.560 founding. They recognize how critical it is to return, perhaps even some people calling

00:06:07.440 themselves Christian nationalists. I have my own issue with that particular moniker, but ultimately,

00:06:12.560 the foundational understanding that Christianity defines the United States in a very real way and

00:06:18.460 should be the basis for our laws and for our customs makes total sense to me. However, at the same

00:06:25.340 time, we see these different entities moving in to places like Texas. We have a new city or rather a

00:06:34.180 suburb, I suppose, being planned. It's an Islamic-friendly suburb. I believe it's called the Epic

00:06:40.580 City Plan. And then we also have a giant Hindu statue being built in Texas or is already built in Texas.

00:06:49.400 And a lot of people recognize this as a problem, right? We know a giant idol to a foreign god when

00:06:56.680 we see it. But simultaneously, they've been told that we have this liberal notion of a pluralistic

00:07:03.680 society. We're a melting pot. It's multiculturalism. And so they have this clash because they've been

00:07:09.880 told that we have religious freedom, which allows people to obviously pursue their understanding and

00:07:16.400 their belief of the divine. But they also know that inherently there should be a preference.

00:07:22.380 There should be a cultural understanding that Christianity is the dominant religion,

00:07:26.880 and that should be expressed in our daily life. But I think people have a difficult time

00:07:30.960 putting that into words and trying to deal with that dichotomy between the religious freedom and

00:07:36.960 the preference for Christianity. What do you think about what's going on in Texas? Why is it so hard for

00:07:42.900 people to reconcile the idea that we are a Christian nation that should prefer Christianity and we

00:07:49.200 still allow freedom of conscience when it comes to religion?

00:07:53.200 Boy, there's a lot there, Oren. I think anyone who's honest would realize that

00:08:02.460 we were founded with a sense of pluralism in the country, but that pluralism was a Trinitarian

00:08:09.260 pluralism. In other words, you know, that, that there was a certain, and it was, and it was super

00:08:15.960 majority Protestant. Right. You can be whatever type of Protestant you'd like to be, right? That was

00:08:21.040 religious. Well, and with a, and you know, obviously Maryland was, uh, uh, you know, Catholic, but, but

00:08:27.400 the, where there wasn't a, with our, you know, the beginning of the second Republic, uh, the, uh,

00:08:33.840 constitutional system, uh, while there wasn't a national establishment, the, I think it was, uh,

00:08:41.420 nine out of the 13 states, uh, had state establishment and all had some level of, of

00:08:49.300 Christian in order to be part of the, uh, ruling class in order to be a representative or, uh, even

00:08:56.660 locally, you had to make a profession of faith of some sort. Again, it was Trinitarian. So how I'll

00:09:03.820 did that Trinitarian pluralism, which is our traditional, is absolutely our traditional

00:09:10.560 bedrock, our traditional foundation. How did that become the cosmopolitan pluralism that

00:09:16.680 we see today? Cosmopolitan, you know, the liberal, the liberal impulse seeks to flatten everything

00:09:22.620 out. So there are distinctions are just basically, uh, become, uh, the, you know, the color jersey

00:09:31.020 that you wear with no more, no more import than that. And it was really, uh, you know,

00:09:38.480 we can get into the specifics of this statue here in a minute, but, but I think it had to

00:09:43.720 do with, with in the, in the middle of the 1800s and, and you had this Northern, Northern

00:09:50.120 versus Southern clash. And the North had really drifted from a, you know, the, the, the Puritan,

00:09:57.200 uh, bedrock in the North really, uh, Puritanism couldn't replicate itself very well. Uh, you

00:10:06.020 had the, not to get too far in the weeds, but you had this halfway covenant understanding

00:10:10.920 and it slowly devolved into kind of a Unitarian, a Unitarian understanding. And so you had Trinitarian

00:10:18.780 South, Unitarian North, but after the civil war, there was very much a national understanding

00:10:24.420 that whether, you know, and I'm, uh, as are you, you know, I'm from the South. Uh, I was

00:10:30.620 reading about that. I'm not real happy with all the results of the, uh, civil war. Um, although I

00:10:36.960 think we can agree that, you know, uh, there were certain things that were necessary to, to be done

00:10:42.400 away with, but you had to fill up the rest of the continent. And that was only going to be done by,

00:10:49.160 by, by M with immigration. And the, here's the, the places of immigration, the chief places were

00:10:55.400 Ireland, Italy, and then, and then you had a large, uh, uh, Jewish population start to come in as

00:11:03.080 Germany went from being a set of Dutchies to, uh, a unified whole. And the Jewish population wasn't

00:11:09.500 always super comfortable with that. And, uh, in the pale of settlement, just to the east of there,

00:11:15.040 you started seeing the refugees come, come from there, but the huge amount or the, the huge numbers

00:11:21.820 of, of, uh, uh, immigrants were Catholic. And so how do you move from, you just have this natural

00:11:30.160 cosmopolitan movement as people didn't agree with the pres, you know, what, what I always said was an

00:11:38.860 Anglican, an Anglican elite, a Presbyterian structure and a Baptist people. Um, uh, suddenly

00:11:46.740 you have a huge number of Catholics coming in and how is that going to jive? And so, so this, you know,

00:11:54.060 and those are all Trinitarian, but, but you just naturally kind of went this cosmopolitan way as the

00:12:02.020 continent needed to be filled up. And if we didn't fill it up, somebody else would Spain, uh, maybe one of

00:12:07.540 the Asian nations, uh, uh, you know, uh, Mexico was, uh, France. And so, you know, um, so you, you,

00:12:18.500 you have this lamentable degradation, at least in my mind coming from what was a pluralism of,

00:12:29.260 hey, we all agree that Jesus is the Lord of, of not only heaven, but also of earth. And therefore

00:12:37.280 he needs to be, uh, uh, we're going to, in the way we rule and write our laws, uh, we're going to

00:12:44.820 recognize that to more of a, more of a positivism, you know, the, the laws are just what we decide the

00:12:51.660 laws are. And, and that went along with this cosmopolitan changeover. And I don't know, you know, I have

00:13:00.560 similar reservations about Christian nationalism, Christian nationalism maxing only because nationalism

00:13:09.080 means something different to everybody you ask. If you just mean, if by nationalism, you mean the

00:13:15.280 government owes its first loyalty to its citizens. I'm down with that. I think that's absolutely, you

00:13:20.820 know, kind of a Hobbesian bargain that, uh, but it tends to mean something ever by every time I ask

00:13:28.380 somebody, what they mean by national, you know, Steven Wolf has his understanding and I generally

00:13:33.360 like what Steven has to say. I mean, he tends to be a little more identitarian than I'm, I'm, I'm maybe

00:13:39.640 a hundred percent comfortable with, but, but then others, you know, you look at the Corey Maulers of

00:13:46.520 the world and I'm really not comfortable with that. So, um, so I, I don't, I don't know how we get

00:13:53.180 from where we are back to what I would personally like, which is yes, pluralism is great, but you've

00:14:02.560 got to fence it somehow. The public square has to be fenced and I'm fine with the Trinitarian

00:14:07.940 understanding. Uh, anyway, I've talked enough where, I don't know if you want to get into the

00:14:13.940 specifics of this, of this Hindu statue or, or where you want to go from here, but that's kind of how

00:14:19.320 I'm thinking of, of these issues. Yeah. And I think that's important because again, this is always

00:14:26.540 the problem. I think when we have this discussion, a lot of people will recognize, okay, yes, we have

00:14:33.060 a history, we have a tradition, but they'll identify the differences in the founding, you know, different,

00:14:40.820 different, uh, peoples coming together at that time. And they'll say, therefore America is always

00:14:47.360 a fractured collection of peoples and religions and languages and identities. That's what America

00:14:54.420 is. And I think people are pretty tired of this because it's very clear that that's not always

00:14:59.500 what America was. Yes. Immigrants have been part of this story. Large wave waves of immigration have

00:15:06.560 changed America. We can debate whether that's good or bad, but it's, it's happened, right? So we can live

00:15:12.600 there forever, but here we are. And so the question has always been previously when waves of immigrants

00:15:18.780 came, there was an understanding that they needed to integrate. They needed to assimilate to an Anglo

00:15:26.420 Protestant norm. It didn't mean that they magically became Anglo or even that they needed to convert to

00:15:31.680 Protestantism though. They should, but ultimately the point is that they recognize, even if they

00:15:38.220 maintained the Catholic faith or they maintained an Irish identity, that ultimately they were changing

00:15:44.260 their norms to fit the country that they had traveled to. And they did not see themselves as

00:15:49.720 people who should then assert their understanding into the American experience. If you wanted a Catholic

00:15:57.420 school, then you went and started a Catholic school. If you want a Jewish school, you go and start the

00:16:02.580 Jewish school. Cause guess what? American public schools were Protestant and Christian. That's just

00:16:07.360 what they were by default. Today. We see a very different scenario. And that doesn't mean again,

00:16:14.700 that waves of immigration in the past were ideal, but the ones we're seeing now are concentrations of

00:16:20.700 peoples who do not intend to assimilate. Wait, we will, what we get most of the time is, uh, it's about

00:16:27.580 hard work and freedom. If you love hard work and freedom, you're an American. Uh, but that is

00:16:33.040 insufficient to grasp what American culture is. And I think we can see that in this Hindu statue. So

00:16:39.840 it's this, for people who haven't seen it, it's this 90 foot tall, 90 ton statue. I think it's

00:16:45.900 already one of the tallest statues in the United States. It's the third, third tallest in the entire

00:16:52.360 country. So we're not talking about like, Oh, they put a stat, you know, they put a little statue

00:16:57.200 outside. No, this is a massive idol. And in any other scenario, you know, this is in Sugarland,

00:17:03.700 Texas. It's of the Hindu, uh, false deity, uh, who man, I guess is, is the way it's going to be

00:17:09.740 pronounced. I'll do my best there. Uh, but this statue is a man. Is that the right to say it? All

00:17:15.560 right. Uh, but yes, it's a statue of a, like a monkey God. And, and it's, it's obviously a scenario

00:17:21.100 where we have gone through this giant American iconoclasm in the last decade or so, right? We're

00:17:27.840 tearing down all the statues first to start with the Confederates. Uh, you know, then it started

00:17:33.040 with, uh, people who may or may not have been slaveholders. Then they went after Abraham Lincoln

00:17:38.640 and, and everyone else, you know, all the people that Donald Trump promised them that they would go

00:17:43.380 after while they was mocked, like, Oh, you take down these statues now, but you'll eventually be

00:17:47.880 taking down statues of George Washington and other founders. And that's exactly what has happened.

00:17:52.680 So at the same time as we've had this massive American iconoclasm, I mean, they literally melted

00:17:57.100 down a statue of Robert E. Lee out of spite. Like that, that's, that's how petty this has been at the

00:18:03.900 same time as they are literally melting down the statues of our founders in our history, we are seeing

00:18:09.340 the erection of giant idols to foreign gods. Now, a lot of people will say, Oh, it's just a piece of

00:18:15.800 metal. Oh, it's just, don't be so dramatic. But guys, if you were in any other time and place in

00:18:23.320 history, if someone came in and melted down all the old statues of your history and stripped them

00:18:29.860 out of the public scare, uh, square and started erecting statues, giant statues, record-setting

00:18:35.880 statues to foreign gods, you would know you had been conquered. You would know that there was

00:18:40.940 a serious change occurring and yet somehow people try to play this off it. It's not a big deal. It's

00:18:47.680 just freedom of religion. I mean, what are your thoughts on this iconoclasm and replacement?

00:18:53.280 Well, I absolutely think, uh, and it's part of, it's part of the, you know, and I'm probably a

00:18:59.960 Protestant. I'm an officer in the Presbyterian church in America. That's the conservative, uh,

00:19:04.540 Presbyterian, one of the conservative Presbyterian denominations. Uh, I'm, I'm conservative theologically.

00:19:11.020 So just so you know, that's where I'm coming from. But one of the civic weaknesses of Protestantism,

00:19:17.280 it, because of its hardcore, especially the more reformed you get, it's hardcore aversion to,

00:19:24.720 um, statues and, and any of, anything that might smack of idolatry is it leaves this vacuum often that,

00:19:35.200 uh, that pagans are willing to fill, uh, or, um, rank statists are willing to fill. And so, uh,

00:19:43.920 you know, that's, that's something that we have to, uh, we have to think about because people,

00:19:51.920 um, why we understand, okay, in Presbyterianism and often Southern Baptist churches, we have stained

00:19:58.800 glass that, that is beautiful depictions of certain things, usually not pictures of Jesus,

00:20:04.760 but maybe even that, you know, depending on your tradition, but certainly the apostles and the acts,

00:20:09.760 these things are important to us because we need these just like the statue of Robert E. Lee. And we

00:20:15.380 had one here in Dallas, not too far from here at Lee Park, which is now called something else.

00:20:19.860 Can't believe it. Uh, but you need these things to remember your history. Otherwise you become

00:20:26.720 what I call the fascism of the living, where you are not, you're, uh, completely disconnected to what

00:20:34.400 came before you. You're disconnected to what's coming after you. And it's just this, uh, uh, complete

00:20:41.860 and utter selfish, uh, existence in the eternal present. And that it doesn't, it doesn't replicate

00:20:50.860 itself. And it, it does leave this vacuum for pagans or, uh, Mark, you know, cultural Marxists

00:20:58.400 to step into the void and, and do these things. Now this, it's really interesting this. So this is

00:21:05.080 the Sri and I, and I'm going to butcher this. So if anyone's Hindu and hearing me, I, I get it. I'm

00:21:10.560 butchering this, but it's the Sri Ashta Lakshmi or Lakshmi temple in Sugarland. And one of the,

00:21:19.820 you know, this isn't the best part of town of Houston. This is in Southwest Houston. They bought

00:21:25.700 land, which was, I think basically before it was, uh, a car or semi salvage lot, something like that.

00:21:33.560 But this statue is if, if you, uh, it's, it hasn't been uploaded into Google earth yet. The, uh,

00:21:40.840 the 3d imagery of it, but if you just go to their website and look, it's immense. Um, and, but,

00:21:48.920 but listen to how this Huneman character, uh, is, is described. He is, he is one who, uh,

00:21:59.280 just the idolatry of it. Contra Christianity is unbelievable. He loses knowledge of who he is

00:22:05.300 because he's being fully immersed in thinking about how compassionate God is. And he descended

00:22:10.660 to the world as a human being to wage war against the evil and then self set and was sacrificed.

00:22:18.420 Y'all, this is, this is an, this is a, I'm sorry. If you're a Christian, this is a satanic

00:22:25.600 anti-Christ. That's all this is version of Christ. Yeah. A hundred percent. So, and again,

00:22:32.880 I, I got no, I have nothing against him, you know, any individual Hindu. I want to be just like

00:22:39.940 Jesus. So if anybody who comes, God puts them in my path, I want to be, I want to first, you know,

00:22:46.420 first Peter 3 15, always have a reason or answer for the hope that is within you. And with meekness

00:22:50.920 and fear, gentleness and respect. And that really, I want to live that out. But as a movement,

00:22:56.800 it is perfectly okay to be, be against this as a Christian and say, no, we don't want idols in the

00:23:04.480 land. And, uh, but, but this is the hack. This is the hack to any liberal society. And I mean, liberal,

00:23:12.360 not in the, in the modern Democrat sense, I mean, liberal in the philosophical philosophy sense

00:23:18.200 is that any, any, uh, incursion of an outside group with a high in group preference can completely

00:23:28.280 hack the system. Um, because as you know, the, the cosmopolitan ideas, none of those, uh, none of

00:23:37.560 those preferences, uh, should matter. You know, we're completely flattened out as to ethnicity and,

00:23:44.800 and custom and, uh, what Schmidt would call way of life. And, uh, and so this hack is, it calls for

00:23:55.300 a return to, we've seen, uh, and God bless Trump. Do I think Trump thinks in these massive political

00:24:01.380 theology categories? I do not, but he has a fantastic gut for these things. And he's, he's talked about

00:24:07.780 the importance of physical borders. And that's true. Even, you know, even God in the old Testament

00:24:13.860 talked about building the walls for defense, you know, offensive weaponry is not good. Don't go get

00:24:20.260 chariots or war horses, but build up the walls. So physical borders, that's a good thing. Now with

00:24:26.560 tariffs, economic borders, those are, you don't have to be a tariff maximalist, but just, you have the

00:24:33.460 tool at your disposal to say, Hey, you know, and I'm a big fan of Nick land, as I know you are on,

00:24:40.300 who talks about if, if you have light speed, borderless capital, it's going to eat everything

00:24:46.360 in its path. It just is. And by the way, Nick land worth reading. If you have a philosophical mind,

00:24:51.440 go check him out. Really interesting guy. But now we're seeing, uh, hopefully this is leading us to

00:24:57.020 see to the importance of presuppositional or metaphysical borders. And that doesn't mean they

00:25:01.980 have to be the most narrow or, or high, but you've, but they, you've got to have some because

00:25:08.840 otherwise you're going to completely lose yourself in a chaotic factionalism that is impossible to

00:25:15.300 govern. And, uh, without an iron rod at some point and, uh, and your people are going to be miserable

00:25:23.220 because there is no unity of the public square. Okay. You'll never law can never rule the heart.

00:25:31.120 Okay. But it can rule the public square and you've got to have some kind of border there. But liberalism

00:25:38.100 has said metaphysics is outlawed basically. And this is the fruit of that. What do you think?

00:25:43.840 No, I agree. And this is so important. Like this, this is so critical. And this is the,

00:25:48.740 the change I think in conservative thinking that has to occur here. This ad that we can't get around

00:25:54.900 from this. We can't escape this. So as you point out, the law can only instruct so much. We have to

00:26:02.860 ultimately have a shared vision that law has to emanate from the shared values of the people, the

00:26:08.900 tradition, the folk ways of the people, that way of being is the only thing that holds us down. And

00:26:14.420 Bertrand Juvenal did such a great job talking about this, that you, the, the more alien or foreign the

00:26:21.620 law is, the more it's going to feel like tyranny. It's not the size of government. It's not even the

00:26:26.700 power of government that makes things feel tyrannical. It's the way in which these things feel foreign

00:26:32.360 that makes it difficult. It's when they are against the conscience of the people that are,

00:26:36.580 they are being imposed on that they matter. The problem that I think still underlies so much

00:26:41.920 of a lot of conservatism is they attribute a universal cultural conscience to everyone who's

00:26:49.000 going to cross into the United States. That once you, as soon as you make contact with the magic

00:26:54.500 dirt, you're going to have this understanding of like what the American culture and what your

00:27:00.020 conscience will be. But that's not the case. If you talk about America being founded on America,

00:27:05.260 Christian values, well, you're admitting that there's something about Christianity that is unique

00:27:10.660 in particular and puts you on a path towards a particular way of being, a particular tradition,

00:27:16.480 particular understanding of the good. And if your job is to import as many people from another

00:27:22.120 country as possible, eventually the only thing that's going to mediate between these different

00:27:27.080 ways of understanding the world is the state. And the more the state has to mediate between many

00:27:32.260 different understandings of the world, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, the more it's going to feel

00:27:37.240 artificial to all of those ways of being because it's not hot or cold. It's not Muslim. It's not

00:27:43.740 Christian. It's not Hindu. It's everything to everyone and therefore nothing to anyone. And so

00:27:48.700 the state becomes larger at the same time as it tries to bring more and more cultures together. It has to,

00:27:55.660 it's, it's, it's, it's, it's required. And so, yeah, it's, it's totalizing, which is exactly what

00:28:02.400 your book is about. It has to be by necessity because it's filling this very void that you've

00:28:07.700 created by flattening every other distinction out. Right. And so if we end up with a scenario where,

00:28:14.420 where conservatives think they are reducing the size of government by saying freedom of religion

00:28:19.140 or these kinds of things, you know, pluralism, these kinds of things, they're actually reducing

00:28:23.640 the amount of Liberty. They are actually increasing the necessity of a large state by enabling the

00:28:30.540 destruction of the common square and the common good. And I think this is just so hard for them

00:28:35.500 to grasp. They want to, they want to measure government tyranny by like literally the size of

00:28:40.280 government or the number of laws of the government. When in actuality, the types of government,

00:28:46.480 the types of laws, the grounding of those laws, what they are trying to bring together is far more

00:28:51.180 important when you're considering the tyrannical aspect of government. We hope you're enjoying your

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00:29:25.080 And it's the very understanding of what law is. Is law revealed? Is it alien in the good sense,

00:29:33.380 not the sense DeJuvenal is speaking of, but in the sense that Plato spoke of when, you know,

00:29:39.320 it's interesting. I just wrote an article last month for AMRA, for American Reformer. You know,

00:29:46.720 the word that Plato is always, begins his career in the Republic, searching for, Plato's Socrates is

00:29:56.160 searching for justice. But that word, and I take the Straussian interpretation of the Republic as

00:30:05.600 being completely within the cave. But the word he uses for justice is the Greek word,

00:30:14.020 dikaiosune, which is Paul's word for righteousness, that you're searching. And Plato, ultimately,

00:30:22.580 it's not in the Republic. He talks about it later in laws and a couple other dialogues,

00:30:27.840 is alien in the sense that it has to be heaven. It has to be towards, a law is the discovery or

00:30:36.260 the loyalty. This righteousness is the loyalty to something that is righteous in its character.

00:30:44.680 So it's alien because we know they were, you know, these were, they didn't, they saw in a mirror

00:30:49.900 dimly. I'm not saying that Plato or Aristotle were prophets in the capital P sense who were receiving

00:30:57.100 direct revelation, but they were struggling. You know, they, they were always on the run because

00:31:00.740 they realized that the Pantheon was a joke. These, these gods that they were worshiping were just as

00:31:07.760 sinful as the people, as the people on earth. And they were murdering and, and, you know, pillaging

00:31:13.560 and doing all these things. And so in a rejection of that, there must be this, this, this unmoved

00:31:19.520 mover that is holy and good in the, in the ultimate author of, of all things. And this,

00:31:25.420 and the search for that, to be loyal to that was this pursuit of justice or righteousness,

00:31:30.380 this dikaiosune. And you see this in, you see this in Paul, uh, and who, uh, you know, was, was in

00:31:39.080 the, in the, uh, in the, uh, was raised up, uh, theologically by Gamaliel, who was in the school of

00:31:45.920 Philo, who was trying to understand all these things. And so this is, this is not something that

00:31:52.420 we're brand new having to deal with as, as, uh, you know, uh, uh, 21st century Americans.

00:31:58.720 This is a continual struggle for political wisdom. And it's, uh, I think it's in the very heart of the

00:32:07.500 great commission. Remember the great commission is, you know, go make disciples of nations.

00:32:12.020 And we can argue whether that's from the top down or the bottom up. I would, I think it's talking about

00:32:17.540 from the top down, but we can argue about that. But what's the preamble to the great commission?

00:32:23.000 Jesus says, all authority on heaven and earth has been given unto me. Therefore, so the basis

00:32:29.340 of all, uh, of, of Christianity and sharing this good news is, is the authority of Christ and not

00:32:39.620 just over your heart and not just over a little patch of ground in Palestine and not just over the

00:32:47.280 ground of your church, but over everything. And we either lay hold of that as Christians, and

00:32:53.780 especially as Protestants who, who believe this stuff, or it's, we're kind of LARPing. Um, and, uh,

00:33:02.300 I know that's harsh words because we do need to worry about personal piety and we do need to worry

00:33:07.260 about, uh, loving your neighbor and you're raising kids and, and being a good husband and being a good

00:33:13.880 wife and those things are important, but there's also a world project going on. Uh, uh, you know,

00:33:20.980 let me, uh, you know, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Isn't just a suggestion. So,

00:33:27.980 um, I find these until we start thinking in those terms as Christians, uh, again, because the,

00:33:38.360 the founding Christians certainly felt like that until we start thinking like that again with,

00:33:44.680 with love and grace, but, but definitely with dominion, then we're going to be fighting a rear

00:33:50.800 guard battle and, uh, and we'll look like England in 30 years. And you don't want to look like England.

00:33:57.620 Well, that's really important. Cause I, this, that was where I was going to go next. Um, you have this,

00:34:04.900 uh, this epic city center, you know, that this like play intentional community that is supposed

00:34:10.060 to be Muslim friendly, which means it's going to be Muslim, right? That's the, that's the whole,

00:34:14.160 what they're actually saying is it's going to be a Muslim. Cause they take this stuff seriously.

00:34:18.660 Right. Right. They, they, they, they're not confused about pluralism. They're not confused about who,

00:34:23.440 about, uh, the need to assert and dominance in, in any given cultural situation. And so this is

00:34:29.560 starting in Texas, this is proposed in Texas. And a lot of people, again, you know,

00:34:34.300 there are people starting Christian communities, Ridge runner with a new founding, you know,

00:34:38.420 they're, they're, uh, starting my buddies. Right. And so, so, so a lot of people will look at this

00:34:43.480 and say, well, there's an intentional community and there's an intentional community. These are the

00:34:47.020 same thing, right? These are people using their freedom of association and freedom of religion

00:34:51.760 to make intentional communities. And so these, this is the same thing. Uh, it's just, you know,

00:34:56.840 it's, it's two different flavors of it. And I think this is really important because as you point out,

00:35:02.660 the UK is currently going through a situation where they have let in a large amount of Muslims who

00:35:08.740 again, are not shy about cultural domination. Don't let any, if, if they are telling you that

00:35:14.220 there is no intention to do that, they are lying. It is literally their religion to do so. So that,

00:35:19.420 that, that is just not true. And if you have any question, just look at the actual religion and the

00:35:24.160 dictates of it. That said over time. And I just had this conversation with Calvin Robinson. I, I,

00:35:29.780 uh, did a pre-tape with him that'll be coming out soon. But one of the things that, uh, you know,

00:35:34.220 he, we were talking about was the fact that just now, finally, conservative politicians in England

00:35:40.660 are just starting to edge out of the foxhole and say, I think we might be a Christian civilization.

00:35:45.860 And they think they're like a super edgy right-wing, you know, they're, they're just,

00:35:50.120 they're just transgressing all of the rules by saying that, yeah, I think we might have a Christian

00:35:55.320 founding, you know, but simultaneously, if you ask any of the politicians there, well, then what do

00:36:01.780 we do about all the Muslims moving? And if we're a Christian nation, if our values are Christian,

00:36:06.100 if we're fundamentally a Christian, and that is what defines our identity and creates our values,

00:36:10.540 if we're going to move a large amount of people from a different religion who are obviously not

00:36:15.220 converting, they are keeping and maintaining their religion, building up these communities that

00:36:20.000 are separate from how are we going to be a Christian nation? And the answer, if you talk to these guys is,

00:36:24.820 oh, we aren't like, we're just, we're always going to be multicultural. You know, that that's just

00:36:28.800 never going to happen. We're not going to do anything about it. And at the same time, obviously

00:36:32.820 in the United States, the good news for us is that most of our illegal immigrants, sadly, we have quite

00:36:38.320 a few, but most of our illegal immigrants are at least nominally Christian, right? Like they at least

00:36:42.680 come from Christian backgrounds. They're not pushing another religion. There are many other problems of

00:36:47.780 cultural incompatibility, but at least the foreign religion is not as much of a force here. However,

00:36:53.420 we do see a large amount of people pushing. I mean, we just had this battle with Elon Musk and Vivek

00:36:59.580 Ramaswamy, right? We need more H-1B visas. We got to have all of India in here as much as possible.

00:37:05.120 You and I were talking before we started about how the DFW is now significantly Indian, how that has

00:37:11.820 come to dominate much of the culture in certain parts of Texas. The question is, how long can you be

00:37:17.340 a country with Christian values when the majority of people moving into or a large number of the people

00:37:23.320 moving into your country are not Christian and only not because they're atheist or they're agnostic, but

00:37:28.500 because they are actively worshiping different gods and erecting statues and building cities around those

00:37:35.140 beliefs. Right. Well, and you either believe as a Christian that Christianity is true and is best for

00:37:46.660 people. At least I'm not. Maybe there are those who are. I'm not advocating for... I subscribe to the

00:37:59.220 Westminster Confession and there's freedom of conscience within the Westminster Confession. That's

00:38:03.540 part of it. Now, I think the Bible obviously is more important than the confession, but I can't

00:38:09.800 control what somebody does in their own home. Okay. What we're talking about is there has to, you have

00:38:15.320 to fence the public square and that's, you either think that's valid or you're going to have chaos,

00:38:22.280 which eventually will bring somebody who's going to enforce the public square because this only ends

00:38:28.020 one way with civilizational decline, clown show, you know, and you go from a Roman Republic to Caesar to

00:38:40.280 then Augustus and now you're emperor maxing and how do you fix things? Well, you just got to kill a lot

00:38:45.220 of people and no one wants that. So, you know, no, unless you're a psychopath, you don't want that.

00:38:54.260 I believe everyone, regardless of their belief, is created in God's image and therefore worthy of,

00:38:59.780 of, of, you know, dignity and respect. I honestly believe that. Not just saying that for Aaron's

00:39:06.040 benefit, but if, but just think of the practicality of, of, of rule. London is a disaster. Marseille,

00:39:17.880 I, uh, uh, uh, uh, Paris, you have no go zones, ghettoization, uh, and, and, and then ultimate

00:39:26.600 takeover of cultures, just, it always ends poorly. Uh, the Roman, uh, anyway, you, I, I just think

00:39:36.580 you're either going to get some level of sanity in this or you're, or, and, and you, you deal with it

00:39:45.660 with, uh, with some level of gentleness or the longer you let it go. It's not, the answer is

00:39:52.820 not going to be gentle. And that's not because guys like Aaron and I would like for there to be a

00:39:58.860 harsh fix. It's just, that's what happens in world history. You get bad wars or you get revolutions or

00:40:08.200 you get, you know, France and it's just, this, this goes one way unless you fix it. Um, so that's

00:40:17.920 what I'm concerned about is, is that, uh, you have terrible decline followed by violence. And I don't

00:40:25.500 want that for my kids. Plus I just think it's wrong. I'm a Christian. I believe Jesus truly was raised

00:40:33.160 on Easter Sunday. I believe that on resurrection Sunday. I believe he got up. He was raised for,

00:40:39.660 for our justification and now sits at the right hand of God. I believe that's true. And therefore

00:40:45.080 I think that the, what's best for everyone is for his rule and reign to be manifest here on earth.

00:40:53.100 And if you don't believe that, then okay. But, uh, but you're going to believe something and you're,

00:41:00.580 and you're, and you're going to, uh, and the laws that you, Carl Schmidt agree with them or not,

00:41:07.080 political theology is a true, it is true. You're the laws and the culture that you, that is produced

00:41:15.480 by those laws is simply revealing who you think God is and how he works in the world, in the world.

00:41:21.620 So if you don't like, if you, if, if you want a Hindu or a Muslim understanding of the public square,

00:41:29.040 just keep doing what you're doing because that's what you're going to get or innate because atheism

00:41:33.300 has no power to fight this. Trust me. Everyone is religious at some level. Yeah. That's my opinion.

00:41:41.920 People who worry about the right wing backlash, right? This is always what I hear the right wing

00:41:47.100 backlash. Oh, the right wing backlash is going to be worse than what we have now. Well, first I'm more

00:41:51.720 worried about the actual power that is in place now, but you need to understand that like guys like Ron

00:41:57.120 and me, we really are the squishy moderates. Okay. We're the off ramp. Okay. If you, if you want

00:42:04.900 to avoid this and this is the classic mistake that people make all the time, this is why you see the

00:42:10.420 worst things happen is because the right wing is not willing to step up when there were solutions,

00:42:16.900 when there were solutions that were less severe, that were less, uh, radical, they were not willing

00:42:23.460 to stand firm. It is the weakness of conservatives, not the overbearing of them. That brings you a

00:42:30.380 harsher right wing reaction. If you had men who were willing to stand up and say, no, we are a

00:42:35.380 Christian country. You have the freedom of your conscience. You may practice in the privacy of your

00:42:39.180 home. We're not going to obstruct your ability to observe your, your religion, but we are a Christian

00:42:44.300 nation and this is what we're doing. And this is what the public square is going to look like.

00:42:48.320 That would stop a lot more of possible violence and oppression and totalitarianism than trying to

00:42:54.960 accommodate all of these things on abstract principle. But in reality, building a country

00:42:59.820 that no longer functions, no longer has an identity and can only be ruled as you point out by a stronger

00:43:06.700 force. And that force is either going to be Islam or it's going to be some kind of philosophy that is

00:43:13.580 radical that people are not going to want to deal with. There is no option in which you just keep

00:43:18.960 this weak wishy-washy. Oh, every, everything goes mentality. And ultimately it just kind of works

00:43:25.040 itself out. As we've already seen, seen in England, you move a large amount of people with a foreign

00:43:31.160 religion into your country. They are not going to stand by forever and just take the subservient

00:43:36.700 position. Once they have a significant minority, they are going to lobby for and receive

00:43:42.060 the carve-outs and cultural instantiation that everybody is worried about Christianity having.

00:43:47.680 And so it's, again, as we say very often, it's not a weather, it's not weather, but which, right? We are

00:43:53.080 going to have a dominant culture. We are going to have a dominant religion. We are going to have a

00:43:57.560 dominant worldview and moral view. That is going to happen. And so you cannot allow, and it is not okay

00:44:04.660 to allow the installment of large displays of foreign deities in your Christian country. That is

00:44:11.860 going to hurt you at the end. You might think you are doing some kind of favor. You are following

00:44:16.980 some kind of abstract principle of religious tolerance. Now, I promise you, you will not be

00:44:22.120 experiencing religious tolerance in 10 to 15 years. Well, it, it, it, I just want people to

00:44:28.800 appreciate, and I'm not trying, this isn't meant as inflammatory. I'm really not that kind of guy.

00:44:33.720 I'm, uh, but think about the folks who are the most classically liberally minded, a lot of, a lot of

00:44:42.580 Protestants who are, uh, very, Hey, you know, we're just, we want a, a, uh, you know, a marketplace of

00:44:51.660 ideas and religion is we know that Christianity is true, but we want that. And yet they're, but they're,

00:44:58.200 uh, uh, uh, right, wrong or indifferent. They're also strong, uh, support, uh, Zionism in, in Israel.

00:45:05.840 Well, what is that? There's, that's not, that is a very much a, Hey, we are a people called according

00:45:12.440 to, uh, uh, our understanding of God's purposes to a specific place and land. And we're going to live

00:45:19.100 in a certain way, how we understand now you can agree or disagree with that. That's not my point.

00:45:24.820 Um, uh, I know that's very inflammatory on the right, that whole issue. That's not what I'm

00:45:31.540 dealing with. What I'm saying is, is if you believe, why would you have one belief over here

00:45:38.880 that, that says, Oh, it's absolute marketplace of ideas in every way, this flattened liberalism,

00:45:46.000 and then think that this over here in this situation is okay. Nobody would question. Do you

00:45:51.340 question that India should be Hindu? Well, I mean, we would hope that it one day would be Christian

00:45:57.240 as Christians, but nobody really, or, or that Myanmar is some kind of, you know, Buddhist or

00:46:04.520 you just don't think of those things. So why is America suddenly this weird car, the nation that

00:46:11.680 the rest of the world thinks of as the super Christian nation, except for us, why do we not think of

00:46:20.220 ourselves that way? That is just strange to me. No, absolutely. And I think ultimately, like I said,

00:46:27.400 there has to be a shift in this mentality. I understand the desire to, uh, again, do your

00:46:35.300 best to, to be winsome, as you say, to, to, to win in the marketplace of ideas, but you, you have to

00:46:41.720 accept the responsibility of governance. You have to, you, if you don't, someone else will take it on

00:46:47.480 as we have noticed time to time again, and it will only be worse for Christians and it will only be

00:46:52.340 worse for the nation because both the truth of Christianity leads to a better nation. And also

00:46:58.320 because the more you fracture the culture, the further that you spread out the moral vision that

00:47:04.100 is supposed to govern peoples, the more you diversify that the harder it is to actually live

00:47:09.840 with some form of virtuous Republic, some kind of limited government. And the more you require a

00:47:15.360 totalitarianism to bind these disparate people together. There have been multicultural,

00:47:20.880 multi-religious societies that work. One of them is Singapore. Guess what? They run around caning

00:47:26.220 anybody who spits gum out. They kill drug dealers. So yeah, you can run a society like that,

00:47:32.220 but I hope you're ready. But that's what it takes. Exactly.

00:47:34.280 You've got to have a Lee Kuan Yew who is, uh, with an iron fist just cause he was a not,

00:47:40.020 you know, smiling with the iron fist, but it was absolutely an iron fist. Uh, that's what you're

00:47:46.720 going to get because it's necessary. You can't, you, you, a zoo needs a zookeeper. And I don't mean

00:47:53.160 that disrespectfully. It's just, if you've got all these different kinds of, if you've got all these

00:47:57.380 different kinds of peoples and you just think that shaking, you know, like a, like a mixed drink,

00:48:04.740 you're going to shake it and, Oh, this tastes pretty good. All mixed together. It never works

00:48:09.020 that way. Um, and, and I, I don't know. I sometimes think that in America, because our

00:48:15.300 culture was so strong for so long and we were very much, uh, very much concerned with our history

00:48:23.400 separated, you know, we studied a little bit of, you know, world war II and, you know, how we came

00:48:28.940 over here and everything, but we really didn't study world history as much. Everybody hated that class

00:48:34.040 in high school. Uh, I mean, I didn't, but, but most people did. I taught it. Yeah. Well, I'm,

00:48:40.220 you know, that we have this, we sometimes don't understand how the world works. And I'm talking

00:48:47.760 about brass tacks. Uh, I talked about this yesterday. I was on a pod yesterday where, uh, uh, I I'm like,

00:48:54.600 and my encouragement at the end of it was, Hey, look, if you're a Christian and you believe God made

00:48:59.600 this world and the people in it, it's your job. You don't have to be a PhD in history, but you

00:49:04.360 should have an understanding of how history works so that if you want to be part of driving the car

00:49:11.020 forward, you know, what's in the rear view mirror. Otherwise you're just, you're driving at night with

00:49:15.660 the, with the headlights off and you don't want to be that. You don't want to be that guy. And

00:49:20.280 unfortunately I see a lot of that, you know, it'll all work out, you know, and Jesus is coming back

00:49:25.360 soon. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Well, what if it's a thousand years before Jesus comes back or

00:49:31.620 what if it's just, he doesn't come back before your grandkids or, or maybe it's 40,000 years,

00:49:37.900 you know, before he comes back, what then are we just, just going to keep flotsamming and jetsamming

00:49:45.840 our way through life? I hope not. I hope I really don't. Yeah. I call this boomer eschatology. I did a

00:49:53.160 whole video on it. Yeah. But yeah, it really is. And I'm Gen X y'all. I am not boomer. So I know my

00:50:00.500 hair is white, but I still have. That's all right. I'm catching up. Don't worry. But, but no,

00:50:05.300 that is a real problem. I think ultimately that there are generations, unfortunately in the United

00:50:12.280 States who have this mentality that, well, the United States is Christian and like the background

00:50:17.060 radiation of the whole thing was Christian when I was a kid. And so therefore like, it'll just always

00:50:22.380 be Christian until Jesus comes back. Like the only way that that ever ends is when Christ returns.

00:50:27.580 Like there's just never going to be this moment. So we don't have to worry about culture. We don't

00:50:30.940 have to worry about society. We don't have to worry about the legacy of our children or what our

00:50:34.600 grandchildren are going to believe because like God will basically end the world before America

00:50:39.000 stops being Christian. But if you believe that you should probably again, check into the UK and see

00:50:44.020 how that's working out for them and how not preferencing that ultimately, you know, degrades their

00:50:49.840 society. But Ron, we have a number of questions from the audience. So we need to switch over there

00:50:54.620 real quick before we do. Is there anything you want people to check out any publication or any place

00:51:00.360 you want them to visit before we start answering questions? I've got part one and part two of power

00:51:07.080 in the age of fracture, which actually deals a little bit with the geopolitical aspect of this very

00:51:11.700 thing. Uh, and, uh, and that's in, at the American mind, which is the, uh, kind of the more, uh, uh,

00:51:20.280 the online, uh, outreach of the, uh, uh, uh, of the, uh, the American mind of, uh, of, uh, good night.

00:51:31.120 I'm blanking here. Uh, Claremont Institute. And then I write at, uh, I write at American reformer and

00:51:39.940 then I'm on, I try to do one or two or three explainer threads about this kind of thing on

00:51:45.520 Twitter. We're just kind of talking people through history, uh, and how political theology is kind of

00:51:51.760 my, is kind of my favorite thing, um, where these things kind of all intersect because I don't believe

00:51:57.640 those are completely distinct categories. So that's, that's where, you know, uh, that's where

00:52:03.580 you can find my stuff. Plenty of Schmitt and Demaestra there. That's what you, that's what you want to

00:52:08.000 hear. All right, guys. So let's move to the questions of the people. We've got philosophical

00:52:13.360 thirstworm. He says the Republican, uh, convention, the Republican convention where we had a prayer

00:52:19.280 to an ooga booga fire demon was a sign of things to come. Yeah. Not, not great when you have a

00:52:25.960 Republican convention where you pray to false gods. I think that's probably not, not the best look.

00:52:31.300 Uh, let's see here. We've got, uh, JNG says there are Christian minorities among Indians. Indian,

00:52:39.780 uh, don't know how to say all of that. Sorry, guys. Uh, looks like, uh, orthodoxy and some kind

00:52:46.200 of Catholicism, Protestant, uh, and thanks Thomas. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm sure there are Christians

00:52:51.660 in India. South, the South of India is, uh, there's a large concentration of the Indians. They are

00:52:58.540 persecuted politically. Um, uh, but yeah. And he says, thanks Thomas, because the tradition is, is

00:53:04.920 the, is, uh, uh, uh, the disciple Thomas went and missionized, uh, that part of the world. So

00:53:11.820 pretty interesting. And we should have, you should pray for those folks. They have a rough time of it.

00:53:17.120 And when they come here, Hey, open your church's doors to them. Uh, they are, you know, they are true

00:53:23.520 brothers and sisters who've seen through it. I know about this just because one of the postal workers at my

00:53:28.320 local post office is from a Christian from, uh, Southern India and a wonderful lady, really,

00:53:34.420 really neat story. I learned a lot talking to her. And then he follows up with Christian

00:53:40.300 slash Mexican does not mean pure Aryan white race. Wait, Aryan is Persian. Uh, I'm not really sure

00:53:48.280 what that's supposed to mean. I don't think anyone was asserting that Mexicans were Aryan, but okay.

00:53:53.840 Thank you. Uh, ruler of the donut says insert crusader meme. Hello, sir. Do you have a moment

00:53:59.160 to talk about Jesus Christ? Uh, yes. Uh, deus vault as it goes here. Let's see. We've got,

00:54:05.860 uh, Phil who says so long as the GDP worshipers are in charge, nothing will improve the American

00:54:12.020 nation. Diversity will be the death of us. Well, Ron, I think you're a great person to talk

00:54:16.120 about this. So you're obviously someone who works in finance, works in hedge funds. You know that the,

00:54:21.840 the, the problems that are needed to be approached here, how can conservatives or right wingers who

00:54:29.180 want to retain the character of Christianity and America, how should they be viewing business as an

00:54:36.920 ally is an enemy. Is there a way to do, uh, to, to operate capital without wearing away those aspects

00:54:44.720 of our nation? How should this be approached? Can business people put their nation or their

00:54:50.440 identity before the Capitol, or is it always going to be the other way around?

00:54:54.700 Well, it's a huge, huge topic. Uh, we probably should do an entire different podcast. I mean,

00:54:59.560 I'm happy to come back on and do an hour on that. I'm going to give you two minutes to do your best

00:55:03.500 number, number one, go listen. Charles Haywood, uh, at the worthy house did a great, it's about six

00:55:10.040 weeks ago, did an, uh, utter takedown of GDP. It was fantastic. So that's number one. And Charles

00:55:16.120 is a dear friend. He's great. Um, and then, uh, the heresy of modern economics of which GDP is a,

00:55:24.840 is a huge part of is that it assumes individuals who are created in the image of God are fungible

00:55:32.540 economic units. So it absolutely destroys the unique, uh, it, it assumes away the unique, uh,

00:55:41.600 and infinite worth of the individual. Uh, so we can just look at everything as an aggregate. So

00:55:48.120 in, in classical economics, at least you had micro and macro, and you didn't have modern monetary theory,

00:55:54.580 which values velocity above the store of value in, in the Bible, it, it, uh, in both old and new

00:56:03.200 testaments savings is, is critical. And so, and, and then the last thing, oh, you asked about business

00:56:09.880 in general. So the Bible from the, from the beginning, the idea that Oren and I could go to one,

00:56:17.260 one another and book and exchange goods and both say, thank you. And, and have, uh, what's called

00:56:26.420 free price discovery is endemic to the, the Christian view of the world. I hate saying worldview

00:56:33.460 because that now that word some is, has become kind of loaded, but, but the Christian view of the

00:56:38.940 world is we can freely, uh, exchange and both say, thank you. You know, here's a goat. Thank you.

00:56:45.780 Here's, you know, whatever, some building materials or whatever, where it gets weird is you have

00:56:52.740 corporate personhood, which probably isn't all good. Again, that's the idea that a corporation

00:56:58.380 can have the same benefits that a person made in God's image can. That's probably weird. And then

00:57:05.380 huge amounts of leverage to, to increase rentier returns. Again, this is a huge topic, but that's,

00:57:13.440 I think Oren and I both would agree that Pareto is a reality that 80% of the assets or the goods are

00:57:20.200 going to go to about 20% of the people. That's just the way God made the world. But if you add on

00:57:25.060 Pareto times rentier times leverage, now you get this weird where the 1% own 99% of everything. That's

00:57:35.140 probably not Christian. That's probably not God's best view of resources, resource allocation. So

00:57:43.780 that there's a lot I said there, I'll stop there, but that's kind of my take on stuff. And we can break

00:57:49.480 that down on, on another show sometime. Yeah, no, I think that's a pretty good job with,

00:57:53.740 with just two minutes, but yeah, we could easily tackle that for another hour and probably should.

00:57:58.060 Um, uh, so thank you for that one, Phil. And then, uh, philosophical thirstworm says,

00:58:03.700 this is why the iconoclasticity of Protestants was so destructive. Your own images need a physical,

00:58:09.480 physically dominant space or that space will be filled. Yeah. And, and I got to say, this is,

00:58:14.200 there's an, there's a problem of, uh, aesthetic re uh, realization in Protestantism. And, uh, I I'm as

00:58:20.940 guilty of this as anybody until a few years ago, I just did not understand this stuff. Like I did not

00:58:26.080 understand that beauty is its own value, that, that like these things actually matter and that

00:58:30.520 the it's utility is insufficient explanation for our being in the world. Like we, we need more than

00:58:37.400 that. Uh, the Protestant desire to avoid, um, you know, uh, idol worship is understandable, but you

00:58:44.040 know, that means, you know, that's why we have, uh, statues of the different founders and others,

00:58:49.000 you know, it, it doesn't have to be necessarily all, you know, depictions of Christ or, you know,

00:58:54.260 you're not, don't have to be worshiping statues of Christ in public, but at the same time,

00:58:58.080 you need to have that presence, that aesthetic presence in your society, because as Ron pointed

00:59:04.460 out in the, the, uh, uh, the comment there pointed out that will be filled like that. You, you will

00:59:10.220 put something in those spaces. If it's not your cultural affectation, if it's not your way of being

00:59:14.860 someone else's will fill that void. And so that is another thing that we have to, as conservatives,

00:59:19.900 be more mindful of, we should be building statues. We should be the ones building statues, if not

00:59:25.740 of, of, of our, you know, of, of Christ, at least of something that is explicitly American and

00:59:31.340 explicitly communicates our filling of that space with things that are of our culture and our tradition.

00:59:38.220 Mm-hmm. 100%. I agree. The, uh, anyway, let's get to, oh no, go ahead. If you have some more to say,

00:59:44.760 I just, well, I just think the beauty, you said beauty. I mean, look at the, uh, sculpture to me

00:59:50.820 is, uh, first of all, I can't even comprehend how it's done, but the beauty of, of some of the,

00:59:57.980 the, the Italian masters in sculpture. And if that's, is that I idolizing the human form? Well,

01:00:06.560 the human form reflects God's, the human form isn't of itself. This is where I would agree probably

01:00:13.420 with the Orthodox is an icon to God. Um, that just means, uh, an image. And so, yeah, you can go off

01:00:20.520 the rails if you go too far with that, but, but we can't look Islam in and of itself is a monadic

01:00:26.940 ultra, uh, rejection of any imagery. That's why they have such, uh, emphasis on calligraphy because

01:00:35.060 they can't have, and parquetry and marquetry and those kinds of things because they can't have any

01:00:39.740 imagery of anything else. And so I think there is, again, I'm a Presbyterian. Okay. So, you know,

01:00:46.880 uh, I, I'm a second, uh, second commandment. I get it, but there is a, there is a balance there

01:00:55.300 where, uh, you know, we, we, we, uh, we need to be, um, we need to appreciate beauty. And part of beauty

01:01:03.080 is the, is the human form as it reflects God's image. And you'll never completely get your brain

01:01:10.380 around that because God exists, you know, the father exists in spirit and unapproachable light.

01:01:15.600 No one has seen him, but Jesus came as a man. So we got to, you know, there's some truth that,

01:01:24.600 that gets us at a deeper level that we can't put words to there. Um, at least that's how I understand it.

01:01:30.640 Makes sense to me. Uh, Joe, uh, McDermott says, uh, following the GDP conversation,

01:01:36.920 corporations are, uh, by law mandated to be evil, anti-Christian and short-sighted prove me wrong.

01:01:43.460 I mean, it's at least true when it came to DEI regulations, civil rights revelation, regulations,

01:01:49.060 all these things that in many ways, corporations are, are required to ask and act in a particular way

01:01:55.280 that the government has compelled them to do. So, uh, I think anti-Christian is actually a pretty

01:02:00.440 reasonable description as well, because ultimately, uh, Christianity has been driven from the public

01:02:05.900 square and that includes corporations. Uh, ultimately, I hope that the form doesn't itself

01:02:10.800 demand that, but, uh, you know, there, there might be some truth there.

01:02:14.780 Well, the corporate, think about it. What does corp corporation mean? It comes from the Latin corpus

01:02:19.860 or body. And as the corporation has increased in importance, the body of Christ has decreased

01:02:27.240 in the American experience. I think those are related. Um, again, I'm not a Marxist. Uh, you do,

01:02:35.880 do, do, should I have the right to invest as a share and share in the profits of an, in,

01:02:42.340 in investment vehicle? I think that absolutely is, but should I have, should I be completely removed

01:02:49.060 from any responsibility in that investment vehicle? I don't know about that. I don't know if that is good.

01:02:56.300 Um, and, uh, and I can still be, remember capitalist is a term from Marx. So I, I, I wish we'd come up

01:03:05.260 with a different term, you know, uh, that's why I always talk about free price discovery.

01:03:10.500 There you go. Uh, he also follows up with Ronald's points on statues are reminiscent of Ian McGilchrist.

01:03:16.260 In my opinion, he referred to him as communion with the dead. Actually, I'm reading, uh, McGilchrist

01:03:21.760 right now. I've got to meet him in, in London while I was there, but yeah. And of course,

01:03:26.780 you know, uh, GK Chesterton called, uh, tradition, the democracy of the dead, right? Like ultimately,

01:03:32.040 these are the things that connect us, that bind us that as, as you point out, the fascism of the

01:03:37.200 living, right. Is there the only ones that matter? Yeah. Right. It's a rejection of that chain.

01:03:41.780 Yeah. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. All right, guys, well, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.

01:03:46.960 Thank you everybody for coming by. Of course, make sure to check out Ron's work over at the

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The Auron MacIntyre Show - April 18, 2025

Foreign Gods Are Invading Texas ｜ Guest： Ronald Dodson ｜ 4⧸18⧸5

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