The Auron MacIntyre Show - Have Evangelicals Been Betrayed on Immigration？｜ Guest： Megan Basham ｜ 5⧸20⧸24

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00:00:30.140 Hey everybody, how's it going?

00:00:31.940 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

00:00:33.740 I am Oren McIntyre, and I've got a stream with a great guest

00:00:37.780 that I think you're really going to enjoy.

00:00:40.440 So a lot of people have noticed that no matter how much

00:00:44.220 I think the average church asks for immigration to stop,

00:00:48.820 it seems like the church leadership is often out of step.

00:00:52.140 We see this with recent remarks from the Pope.

00:00:54.680 We see Catholics are sometimes mixed on this.

00:00:57.780 And of course, evangelical leaders often also seem obsessed with the idea of facilitating

00:01:03.560 open borders, even though their church members are often opposed to it.

00:01:08.000 I wanted to dive a little bit into the politics and the infrastructure that is often used to

00:01:13.120 facilitate illegal immigration and other left-wing priorities, even though the majority of Christians

00:01:19.240 seem to push back against them.

00:01:21.120 So joining me to do that today is The Daily Wire's Megan Bashman.

00:01:25.980 Thanks for coming on.

00:01:27.780 Thanks for having me.

00:01:28.380 It's great to be here.

00:01:29.940 Absolutely.

00:01:30.280 You're actually writing a larger book about this, which we'll talk about at a later time.

00:01:34.640 But I wanted to have you on because I know that you delve into much of this.

00:01:38.000 And I'm somebody, obviously, who's paying attention to politics at a pretty regular basis.

00:01:42.200 But it can be a lot to focus on what's going on with the church and the different organizations,

00:01:46.320 the NGOs, everything, all the moving pieces involved with that.

00:01:49.540 Because at this point, these massive denominations and organizations have in many ways become

00:01:55.680 governments unto themselves.

00:01:56.840 And it can be difficult to tell what kind of movements and who's pushing back against

00:02:01.220 who and what direction kind of the zeitgeist is taking it.

00:02:05.020 But I think the good place to start before we kind of get into anything else is why does

00:02:11.860 it feel like there's this disconnect between leadership and the average churchgoer, especially

00:02:19.060 in the evangelical realm?

00:02:20.520 I think most evangelicals are compassionate towards illegal immigrants.

00:02:24.140 They understand why they would come across the border.

00:02:26.620 They don't want them to be hurt or anything like that.

00:02:28.880 But they also feel a sense of this is my country.

00:02:31.180 And at the end of the day, while these might be Christians and brothers and sisters, that

00:02:35.120 doesn't entitle them to come into my home and have access to the services that are paid

00:02:40.640 for by people in this country.

00:02:42.260 Why does there seem to be a disconnect between them and the leadership?

00:02:45.200 Because there is a massive disconnect between them and the leadership.

00:02:50.200 And a lot of that was very deliberately orchestrated.

00:02:53.460 And it's an ongoing deliberate orchestration.

00:02:57.120 So, you know, I mean, I think we can talk about to a certain degree that it's kind of the

00:03:01.020 respectable establishment position to take to be pro pathways to citizenship and things

00:03:08.060 like that.

00:03:08.440 I mean, obviously, we know that's chamber of commerce, elite republicanism.

00:03:12.200 So I think there's certainly a certain level of wanting to align with that when you are

00:03:17.400 upwardly aspirational and you want to be seen as being a part of that white glove crowd.

00:03:23.020 So that's part of it.

00:03:24.240 But then there's also a very deliberate effort that happened here.

00:03:29.040 And I always kind of want to start these conversations by telling people who aren't religious or who

00:03:34.680 are kind of nominally Christian, but maybe they're not very involved in a church.

00:03:37.980 Like, why do I care about this?

00:03:39.400 Because it's important to know why you care about the evangelicals, even if you're not

00:03:43.320 one of them or, you know, you don't are particularly active in your church.

00:03:46.900 And it's because they are around 32 percent of the electorate and they are well known as

00:03:53.780 the GOP's strongest base.

00:03:56.820 The Atlantic has rightly called them America's most powerful voting bloc.

00:04:00.780 So I would say that, you know, in decades past, there was something of a really strong

00:04:05.140 oppositional position that the left took towards evangelicals.

00:04:09.620 And that shifted around 10 years ago when you started to see some of these big left wing

00:04:14.360 foundations say, OK, instead of opposing them, how do we start to co-opt them?

00:04:20.120 And I mean, you can see in organizations like George Soros's Open Society Foundation, his director

00:04:27.620 of U.S. programs at that time, a guy named Bill Vandenberg, actually writes in a memo to

00:04:34.160 other principals in that organization for U.S. programs, hey, we're not going to move our

00:04:42.100 legislative priorities down the field if we don't find a way to engage religious Americans.

00:04:47.460 This isn't going to go away.

00:04:48.620 So we really have to rethink our tactics about how we approach them.

00:04:52.380 So I would say that was where you really started to see this was right around 2012, 2013 with

00:04:58.520 the Gang of Eight Bill.

00:04:59.600 And at that point, you saw major left wing secular foundations like Open Society, like

00:05:05.660 the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Tides Foundation, all start kind of pouring money

00:05:11.620 into organizations that were working with what I would call evangelical front groups.

00:05:16.440 So the National Immigration Forum is one of the largest and best known.

00:05:20.520 It's known as being left wing.

00:05:22.260 But what they specifically did was create a front group called the Evangelical Immigration

00:05:27.660 Table.

00:05:28.400 And they brought in a whole bunch of religious leaders to affect essentially trickle down

00:05:33.080 influence.

00:05:33.720 So, hey, if all of our big religious leaders are for this, then that's the Christian thing 0.98

00:05:38.480 to do.

00:05:38.880 We better get on board with that position as well.

00:05:41.380 Yeah, I definitely want to get into this subversion, subversive aspect, because it's very clear,

00:05:47.420 like you said, that that these people still hate Christians like the left is very clear 0.76

00:05:52.740 about, you know, that that the white evangelical Christian is the worst thing they could possibly 0.99

00:05:57.100 imagine. 0.97

00:05:57.540 It's that, you know, it's it is Satan incarnate for them or whatever the atheist version of 0.65

00:06:02.320 that would be.

00:06:03.460 And so, like, these are people that clearly hate, but they also have gone out of their way

00:06:07.220 to slowly infiltrate these organizations and sway opinion.

00:06:11.100 And I want to talk about that shift and how they're playing both sides of that.

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00:07:44.480 And before we dive right back into it, guys, I do want to remind you that we are coming

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00:08:31.860 All right.

00:08:32.240 So, Megan, you were talking about the subversive aspect, right?

00:08:35.520 A lot of evangelicals, I think, instinctually understand, again, that compassion towards

00:08:41.200 the immigrant, but also understand that there has to be rule of law.

00:08:44.760 There has to be limitations.

00:08:46.000 There has to be a way to go ahead and limit and vet who's coming in for the safety, security,

00:08:51.420 and just prosperity of the nation.

00:08:53.960 But it does feel like there has been a very concerted effort.

00:08:56.660 And as you laid out there at the beginning, there are these front groups that have been

00:09:00.540 set up.

00:09:01.180 It also, it seems that there have been a large number of NGOs that are being used.

00:09:06.860 So it's not just that they're influencing church leadership, you know, and they're not

00:09:10.840 just, okay, we're going to gather these people together.

00:09:12.560 We're going to kind of give them this credential and use that to influence the opinion of the

00:09:18.040 average evangelical.

00:09:19.360 But there's also these large organizations that are funneling the time effort, the ministry

00:09:24.320 dollars of evangelical Christians, and they're directly going to undermine border security and 1.00

00:09:30.640 make sure that illegal immigrants make the trip across.

00:09:34.300 Right.

00:09:34.880 And that's a really important aspect of this.

00:09:37.300 And I think it's important also to note that this is all kind of incestuous.

00:09:40.560 So if you take a group like World Relief, one of their vice presidents of communications

00:09:46.360 also sits on the board, I think, of evangelical immigration table.

00:09:51.400 He's like their national director, this guy, Matthew Sorens.

00:09:54.440 So you see them sitting on the one side, okay, we're working for this NGO, which is getting

00:10:00.220 tens of millions of dollars from the federal government to help facilitate illegal immigration.

00:10:06.520 I would say, you know, what they do is they sort of help people claim asylee status.

00:10:12.080 And we know that that's become a cute little game that if you can just get across the border,

00:10:15.740 then you claim you're an asylee.

00:10:18.980 And at that point, they argue, well, you're not an illegal immigrant because you may have

00:10:22.780 crossed the border illegally, but you claimed asylum.

00:10:25.760 So now you're here legally because you're waiting to be processed.

00:10:29.680 So at the same time that these guys get, you know, huge contracts and grants from the

00:10:35.400 federal government, they're also sitting on the boards of these organizations that, and

00:10:40.600 I do want to be specific because you brought this up, that it's not just about ministering

00:10:45.580 to illegal immigrants or any immigrants who happen to come here.

00:10:49.080 In fact, it's not about that at all.

00:10:50.680 That's not what they do.

00:10:52.100 What they do is lobby for legislation.

00:10:55.160 So you don't see them releasing curriculum into churches to say, you know, here's how to

00:11:00.660 help people on the ground who may need a job or, you know, may need clothing or food or

00:11:06.560 shelter.

00:11:06.940 That's not what they do.

00:11:08.080 What they do is try to teach church members how to lobby for legislation.

00:11:12.200 It's very specific.

00:11:14.280 So when you, yeah, sorry.

00:11:16.240 No, no, no.

00:11:16.720 Keep going.

00:11:17.800 So what they do, and then you're seeing them on both sides of the border.

00:11:22.900 And I think it's also important to know that they don't always know, I think, some of the

00:11:26.000 heads of these organizations, like it was interesting to look at Samaritan's Purse and

00:11:29.840 Franklin Graham.

00:11:31.080 And I watched him give an interview, I think it was on News Nation, where he said, hey,

00:11:36.100 we don't have anything to do with this UN program that is passing out debit cards to

00:11:42.200 people on their way from like Venezuela across the Darien Gap. 0.54

00:11:46.260 We're not involved in that.

00:11:47.660 And then later it came out that they were.

00:11:49.340 And I actually asked some experts, hey, listen, is it possible that Franklin Graham didn't

00:11:53.860 know that his organization was involved with that because it has so many tentacles into

00:11:58.780 so many different organizations.

00:12:01.220 And I was told, yeah, it's absolutely possible.

00:12:03.920 A lot of times people really don't know how deep the tentacles go, and they don't always

00:12:08.600 know all the ways that they're partnering, either with the federal government or with the

00:12:13.440 UN or with some of these left-wing foundations.

00:12:16.740 Yeah, I think it's really important for people to understand that, like you said, there are plenty

00:12:21.140 of people who are probably acting in good faith who do want to help people out, and they simply

00:12:26.120 don't understand the extent or how complicit they're being in different steps of this process.

00:12:31.020 The need of our ruling class to just continuously move people into the United States, it seems 0.99

00:12:38.280 rather compulsive.

00:12:39.500 And they are more than willing to involve well-meaning organizations that otherwise would be used

00:12:46.080 to go ahead and better people here in the United States care to administer to the people

00:12:50.640 here in order to go ahead and subvert the laws of the United States.

00:12:53.900 And I think that a lot of the guys, you know, I've seen church ministries have been around

00:12:58.640 when this has happened.

00:12:59.860 You know, people, oh, okay, we're packing lunches, we're preparing, you know, to help

00:13:04.260 for natural disaster victims.

00:13:06.360 And then they find out halfway through the process, well, half of this is going to natural disaster

00:13:12.360 victims.

00:13:12.980 But the other half is going to people who have been brought across the border by coyotes.

00:13:17.980 And yeah, those people, you know, obviously they're in a need, but you're actively facilitating

00:13:23.020 a process of human trafficking by delivering, you know, material to these people.

00:13:30.080 A lot of the, this is like in Africa where the foreign aid goes there, right?

00:13:35.120 Oh, we're giving foreign aid.

00:13:36.340 No, you're actually just facilitating a dictatorship.

00:13:39.420 None of this is going to the people that this is just allowing the guys who otherwise might

00:13:44.200 have to feed their people, might have to take care of them to take all of the money that

00:13:47.600 they would otherwise use to take, to care for the starving people and recirculate it

00:13:52.400 back into their dictatorship, buy more arms, buy, you know, whatever, sell the medicine

00:13:56.180 at a price.

00:13:57.260 And this is the kind of thing that happens with a lot of these organizations.

00:13:59.960 They're trying to do good.

00:14:01.360 They're trying to take care of people who otherwise might be starving or, you know, but

00:14:05.180 wouldn't, would might not have a meal or medical care.

00:14:07.900 And what they end up doing is actually just being a substitution.

00:14:12.320 They're just subsidizing the care for these people who otherwise would probably not come

00:14:17.080 across the border or not be able to because they have access to that care once they're

00:14:21.080 across.

00:14:22.080 Right.

00:14:22.660 And let's be clear that in a lot of times, it's not that they're in any particular danger

00:14:27.200 or that they would not be able to pursue a good life in somewhere like South America.

00:14:33.220 It's just that, well, America's better. 0.62

00:14:35.140 So if I can get to the United States, I would rather do that.

00:14:37.900 So, I mean, I think there's this perception that we're talking about people who are in

00:14:41.180 dire straits and that's often not the case.

00:14:43.500 And not just that.

00:14:44.300 I mean, it's important to look at what is the return on investment here.

00:14:47.420 And you can, I think the estimate has been something like you can help 10 times as many

00:14:52.320 people on the ground in those countries as you can bringing someone here.

00:14:57.280 So it would actually be a lot more effective as far as altruism goes to say, let's minister

00:15:03.080 to and help those people in their countries rather than trying to get them across the

00:15:07.880 border here as refugees, for example.

00:15:10.360 But I also don't want to be like too charitable to some of these groups because at one time,

00:15:15.220 I think, you know, there were some noble aims.

00:15:19.460 But over time, when those big government grants keep coming, your purpose becomes to continue

00:15:25.700 to see those government grants.

00:15:27.160 And so now you're just sort of a lobbying arm for ensuring that you have a reason to

00:15:31.420 exist.

00:15:32.240 And so they are importing, you know, new voters, new workers.

00:15:36.020 I mean, this is very much chamber of commerce policy.

00:15:39.120 The National Immigration Forum is pretty open about the fact that we are here to help create

00:15:42.860 a new workforce.

00:15:44.000 So we know what that does to wages.

00:15:45.860 We know what that does to housing prices.

00:15:47.680 We know that it's not good for a lot of our neighbors.

00:15:49.640 And yet it's all brought in under the rubric of Christians have to support this to love

00:15:54.820 your neighbor, even though in so many cases, it's actually harmful to their actual neighbors

00:15:59.500 living right next door to them.

00:16:01.700 So I want to ask you about that, too, right?

00:16:03.540 Because this is something I hear all the time from people is like, well, you know, I heard

00:16:07.920 the story of the Good Samaritan.

00:16:09.580 And so everybody's my neighbor.

00:16:10.900 And so therefore, I can't prefer the people close to me like I can't like I have to treat,

00:16:18.700 you know, an illegal immigrant exactly the same way and prioritize them at the same way 0.57

00:16:23.820 that I prioritize my neighbor.

00:16:25.760 And I think that's a really, really dangerous understanding of Christian teaching.

00:16:29.540 I don't think that's the indication at all of the implication at all.

00:16:32.980 And when you do this, not only are I think you, you know, subverting the teachings of Christ,

00:16:37.480 you're also opening yourself up to be taken advantage of by some of the worst people in

00:16:42.760 the world.

00:16:43.760 You have to understand, like you said, that the commission is first to your own nation 0.76

00:16:48.900 and then to others.

00:16:50.160 It's to you take care of your neighbor and then you take care of others.

00:16:53.780 You don't skip over the people next to you and their well-being in the hope of caring

00:16:58.780 for someone who has been brought in illegally, violating your laws in a very dangerous

00:17:03.460 situation to subvert your national integrity.

00:17:07.480 You know, there was a character in, I can't remember which Charles Dickens novel it is

00:17:12.180 off the top of my head, but it's a mother who has a whole bunch of children and she entirely 1.00

00:17:15.540 neglects her children in order to do all this missions work that makes her feel really good 0.60

00:17:20.820 about herself.

00:17:21.520 And so her children are neglected.

00:17:23.140 They're doing terribly.

00:17:24.340 And the joke that Dickens makes throughout it is this woman views herself as so charitable

00:17:28.680 because she's involved in all this church missions work and yet her children are struggling

00:17:33.060 and ignored.

00:17:34.020 And I think that's what we see right now from our government.

00:17:36.720 And it's also really important to go, okay, Christ's command to love your neighbor or

00:17:42.240 to act as the good Samaritan was not a government policy.

00:17:46.360 It's not saying this is how the government, the federal government needs to employ its immigration 0.93

00:17:52.820 policy.

00:17:53.680 And that's how it's being used.

00:17:54.940 And that really is an abuse of scripture.

00:17:56.500 And so when we see that, that's kind of why I like to emphasize for people, when you dive

00:18:01.540 into these organizations like the evangelical immigration table, you need to know that that's

00:18:07.040 not even what they're doing anyway.

00:18:08.240 They're not just seeing someone suffering on the side of the road and saying, hey, we should

00:18:11.880 help them.

00:18:12.340 Because I think any Christian sees that and goes, yeah, I agree with that.

00:18:14.960 If I see someone who crosses my path that is suffering, I'm going to help them.

00:18:19.700 But it doesn't mean that we now create a mechanism for suffering in my path.

00:18:24.240 And it also doesn't mean that I am obligated to hurt other neighbors to help that neighbor.

00:18:31.220 And that's kind of what they're arguing.

00:18:32.980 I mean, unequivocally.

00:18:34.160 And when they do that, they're not actually giving food to that person there either, because

00:18:38.800 that's not the purpose of these organizations.

00:18:41.060 Their explicit purpose is to lobby for legislation.

00:18:44.640 It's why they were created.

00:18:45.760 It's what they do.

00:18:46.480 They are lobbying for bills.

00:18:48.440 So this is explicitly political activity.

00:18:51.560 And that's very different than just ministering.

00:18:54.040 And it's also very different than spreading the gospel, because let's be very clear, when

00:18:57.360 you have a group like, say, World Relief or any of these other religious NGOs, they sometimes

00:19:02.360 very carefully in their language kind of suggest to the people who are getting involved with

00:19:06.560 this work or who are giving money to their work, we're spreading the gospel of Christ.

00:19:11.540 No, they're not.

00:19:12.160 They're barred by law from doing that.

00:19:14.560 So when they're bringing people in at the border and helping them get resettled, they're 0.99

00:19:19.820 not telling them about Jesus because they're not allowed to do that.

00:19:23.320 I like the phrase, the mechanism of bringing suffering into my path.

00:19:27.540 I think that's an important one for people to keep in mind as they're thinking about these

00:19:32.160 issues.

00:19:32.460 So you talked about how the government grants necessarily shift the way these institutions

00:19:39.440 structure themselves and their incentive structure.

00:19:41.900 This is, I don't know if you're familiar with conquest laws, but that absolutely deftails

00:19:47.440 into that natural leftward pull of organizations.

00:19:51.420 I wonder then, a lot of people have been talking about, of course, Christian nationalism, and

00:19:57.000 I'm sympathetic to many of the aims of Christian nationalism, though I have some problems with

00:20:03.280 philosophically and just rhetorically with the title.

00:20:06.760 But I wonder if they don't understand maybe the consequences then of a structuring where the

00:20:14.880 government is working as hand in hand with these organizations.

00:20:18.240 Is that a cautionary tale or is it simply the orientation of the government where if the

00:20:23.960 government was already operating under the understanding of the good of the people and the true Christian

00:20:30.760 good, would they just be a helpful partner to Christian organizations or should we be very

00:20:36.280 careful about the way that we kind of pair government funding with Christian organizations

00:20:40.720 lest they always be subverted in this way?

00:20:44.200 Well, I think any time that you're tying government funding to a religious organization, the religious

00:20:50.000 organization needs to watch its back for what's going to be required of it eventually, because

00:20:54.180 we have seen this right with religious schools is suddenly, you know, you accept some type of even

00:20:59.780 government loans for students who attend your schools, it now thinks it gets a right to say

00:21:04.080 who you can admit and who you hire and what Title VII, Title IX, all other kinds of regulations

00:21:10.820 you have to follow.

00:21:11.940 So there's no, the federal government doesn't give you money and then just back away and say,

00:21:15.320 do your thing, you know, we're just here to fund you a little bit.

00:21:17.980 It doesn't do that.

00:21:19.020 And so, yes, one, I do think that that is always a danger if you're going to take money

00:21:24.020 from the government.

00:21:24.540 But then I also think there's this.

00:21:25.740 There is the fact that when you take that money, your mission is by nature going to drift.

00:21:34.200 But for some reason, that's a Christian nationalism, if you want to call it that, that they're okay

00:21:39.780 with.

00:21:40.300 So we're okay with saying these religious organizations are going to lobby for policy specifically.

00:21:46.720 Let's take something like the Southern Baptist Convention, which I think represents by some

00:21:51.240 estimates up to 5% of the population, they have a lobbying arm that at the same time that

00:21:57.120 it's out saying, hey, Christian nationalism is really dangerous and you need to look out

00:22:00.940 for these people who are saying, how do we bring our morals to bear on questions like,

00:22:06.340 say, transgender policy in various states?

00:22:11.020 So they argue for pluralism in that case.

00:22:14.260 But when it's things like what we do about immigration, then we have a biblical mandate

00:22:20.580 to lobby for specific legislation.

00:22:23.000 So there, I mean, there's an obvious hypocrisy there.

00:22:25.080 And I don't quite understand how they get around that.

00:22:27.800 And I don't understand how I see guys like former ERLC head Russell Moore, who's now the

00:22:33.820 editor-in-chief of Christianity Today.

00:22:35.620 I don't get how he appears in a Rob Reiner movie warning about Christian nationalism, but

00:22:41.500 at the same time takes a leadership role in organizations like the Evangelical Immigration

00:22:47.080 Table saying, because of our Christian morals, we have to lobby our legislators to pass this

00:22:51.780 certain legislation.

00:22:53.640 And it's on issues that are not nearly as clear, right?

00:22:58.140 Something like how do we handle our border policies is very biblically debatable.

00:23:02.640 Something like, should we mutilate children?

00:23:06.260 Not biblically debatable.

00:23:08.440 So.

00:23:09.060 It's almost like his application of when Christians should care about politics is just aligned 0.62

00:23:14.420 with power and has nothing to do with, you know, with the understanding of what the Bible

00:23:19.260 actually says about a biblical nation in the way that it would be influenced when making

00:23:24.660 its laws.

00:23:26.040 Almost like.

00:23:27.120 Yeah.

00:23:27.260 So, uh, the Pope recently came out, uh, and, uh, said, and every time I say something,

00:23:34.040 the Pope says, uh, I will eventually have a bunch of Catholics screaming, like the media 0.97

00:23:37.920 lie.

00:23:38.280 That's not what he said, but I'm pretty sure this is what he said, guys.

00:23:40.760 So I'm just going to go ahead and broach this topic.

00:23:43.440 Uh, you know, he, he said that, uh, the closing the border was terrible that you could, you can't

00:23:48.260 close the border and turn people away.

00:23:50.720 He said, once they're here, you can decide whether or not they, they should be here and

00:23:54.400 turn them around.

00:23:55.100 But he said to, to, to close the border to, to illegal immigrants was, was inhumane.

00:24:00.640 And I wonder if this is not a, a constant trick that we play.

00:24:05.740 I have no, to be clear.

00:24:07.560 I don't know if Pope Francis understands the mechanical problem that he's, he's kind of

00:24:12.240 stepping into.

00:24:13.020 He's rather old.

00:24:13.660 Maybe he just, he's just not aware.

00:24:15.720 Uh, but I have a feeling he might be aware.

00:24:18.720 Uh, and, and when you have a, uh, you know, someone, as you already said, when they, after

00:24:23.840 they cross in, once they're in the system, sending them back becomes a thousand times

00:24:28.280 more difficult.

00:24:29.220 The, the physical crossing of the border, once that's done, 90% of the work is done because

00:24:34.100 they know that they're going to be able to apply for asylum.

00:24:36.480 There's going to be a million people there to subvert the system. 0.97

00:24:39.720 Is it that Christians generally, or, or missing Christian leaders just don't understand the

00:24:44.760 manipulation of the procedural outcomes that ensures this process will eventually move

00:24:50.460 in the favor of illegal immigration, or are they actually counting on that and just selling

00:24:55.000 it to their constituents or their, their parishioners as he, you know, Oh, it's, it's not a big

00:25:00.300 deal.

00:25:00.560 You know, once, once they get here, we can just turn them around.

00:25:04.180 Um, I mean, I don't think, I don't buy into the idea that anyone's so naive.

00:25:08.540 I don't really even think the Pope is that naive that, Oh, you know, it's just let them

00:25:12.520 in and then we can sort it out once they're here.

00:25:14.500 I mean, everyone knows it doesn't work that way.

00:25:16.340 Essentially what we eventually have is that, you know, the Reagan deal that we made.

00:25:21.460 Well, okay, we're just going to legalize them just this one more time.

00:25:23.960 And then 10, 20, 30 years down the road, we're getting, Hey, can we just gang of eight

00:25:28.220 bill?

00:25:28.440 Can we just do it one more time?

00:25:29.700 And we get the Lankford bill 10 years down the road, one more time.

00:25:33.500 And I think people caught wise to that, which is why you have the evangelical base opposing

00:25:37.760 it because they don't really buy that anymore.

00:25:39.240 And that's why there's been this, something of an astroturf effort to try to convince them

00:25:43.760 that now it's not just solving the problem.

00:25:47.120 Now it's a Christian mandate that you have to support this.

00:25:50.700 So, I mean, I think that's why we see it.

00:25:52.860 When I look at the guys who are the religious leaders of this, um, I think there's some who

00:25:58.640 just go with it because, Hey, all my pastor friends and, you know, big Christian book author

00:26:03.700 friends are signing this letter.

00:26:05.380 So I'm going to sign it too.

00:26:06.720 I do see that, but I think the guys who are leading these organizations who, you know,

00:26:12.180 sit on the boards, who are very well known to, to be the faces of this effort, someone

00:26:18.120 like a Russell Moore or his replacement.

00:26:20.940 Now a guy named Brent Leatherwood, who's running the ERLC, um, Shirley Hoogstra of the council

00:26:26.580 for Christian colleges and universities.

00:26:28.260 They know, I really have a hard time after everything that I've seen, believing that they don't

00:26:32.500 understand what they're doing because they are so specifically pushing that legislation.

00:26:38.400 And then if you go back and you look at, okay, there is no legal separation between the left

00:26:44.540 wing national immigration forum and the evangelical immigration table.

00:26:48.740 As far as we can tell, they are legally the same entity.

00:26:51.400 They were several years ago.

00:26:53.400 They admitted that.

00:26:54.260 And as I look into all of their corporate records, nothing seems to have changed.

00:26:58.380 So they seem to still be the same organization.

00:27:00.760 So they certainly know that they're a part of a left wing organization.

00:27:04.600 They certainly know what that organization's aims are and why the national immigration forum

00:27:09.780 says we want to bring in, um, more workers.

00:27:13.400 I mean, they've been very clear that they partner with the chamber of commerce and some of these

00:27:17.740 other groups to say, we want cheap labor.

00:27:19.760 So I don't believe that they're so naive that they don't know that.

00:27:22.740 And then there's also the fact that look, they know who supports them.

00:27:26.620 I mean, they know that they're taking money from La Raza, from Rockefeller, from Soros,

00:27:33.140 from Tides.

00:27:33.760 I mean, these are the organization that fund the national immigration forum.

00:27:38.020 So why would the evangelical table think that the national immigration forum has so much

00:27:43.880 interest in forming this body and getting their materials out to churches?

00:27:47.880 I mean, they, you know, they've created whole campaigns on welcoming the stranger and putting

00:27:53.120 out, uh, radio ads and church curriculum and things like that.

00:27:56.760 So, you know, the guys at the top of this, it's clearly very orchestrated and it's clearly

00:28:01.460 very subversive.

00:28:03.440 When I was a kid, uh, obviously the media has always been against Christians or at least

00:28:11.320 has been for, for my entire life and they made it very, it was very easy for them to, to kind

00:28:18.720 of show the religious right as this big, big bad guy, right. 0.74

00:28:21.640 That wielded all this power, had all this influence and they put out all these propaganda

00:28:26.760 films and TV shows and things about people fighting the censorship of the religious right.

00:28:32.880 And, you know, I think that over time, you know, it's been come very clearly that if anything,

00:28:37.320 the ridges for this, right, really undersold the danger of the slippery slope and where

00:28:42.280 we would end up.

00:28:43.120 So obviously on the issues of the religious right, uh, was, was correct pretty much a 1.00

00:28:48.120 thousand percent, um, if anything, probably too timid about that.

00:28:52.000 But the confusing thing is that what, you know, they were sold as this big cultural force

00:28:57.700 over, uh, my entire childhood.

00:29:00.540 It's very clear that in the last like 10 years or so, like you said, the entire leadership has

00:29:06.360 been subverted very quickly.

00:29:08.640 It's, it feels like, and I wonder, do you feel like this was always a paper tiger?

00:29:13.160 Was the religious right ever really in opposition to the powers that be?

00:29:19.120 And if so, how did they so quickly get subverted and turned into this left-wing organization?

00:29:24.260 Because it feels like consistently what we see is that Christians are simply just not 1.00

00:29:28.920 able, especially conservative Christians are not able to maintain control of their own

00:29:33.320 organization.

00:29:33.900 They just are continuously subverted with very minimal effort.

00:29:38.080 And I just wonder if that was always the case and it was just held up as a paper tiger,

00:29:41.900 or if there was something that particularly, uh, kind of shook up the leadership that allowed

00:29:46.660 for this quick entryism into, uh, Christian organizations to turn them into the kind of

00:29:51.620 these immigration mills. 0.86

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00:30:22.920 Well, you know, I mean, I might disagree a little bit just as far as the rank and file

00:30:28.560 go, because they have been pretty effective at batting back immigration, um, legislation

00:30:33.740 and, and seeing those bills that, for example, the gang of eight, the Lankford bill.

00:30:38.400 I mean, when you look at what they were told, um, if you look at the legislators, like, I think

00:30:43.840 Lankford really thought like he had the backing because you have groups like the evangelical,

00:30:47.980 they put out polling, they're like, oh, we commissioned this polling.

00:30:51.180 And this polling shows all the evangelicals really want, um, this kind of reform.

00:30:56.400 They want a pathway to citizenship.

00:30:58.120 So then you have a guy like Lankford who partners with Schumer and goes forward to try to put

00:31:02.240 this bill and he gets smacked right in the face with it and seems shocked that it happened.

00:31:06.140 And you saw the exact same thing happened 10 years ago with the McCain bill.

00:31:11.540 Like they all seemed really surprised because the evangelical leadership told them, no, no,

00:31:16.700 no, we've got support for this.

00:31:17.940 They really want this.

00:31:18.840 Christianity today runs headlines saying this evangelical immigration table commissioned a

00:31:24.140 poll shows that evangelicals want these policies, but they're the largest constituency of the GOP

00:31:30.760 base.

00:31:31.400 And then turns out they don't.

00:31:32.880 And Lankford has to slink away, you know, having had his head handed to him.

00:31:37.780 And so I think on a certain level, they have been effective at that, at specific legislation.

00:31:44.380 So it feels like they lose a lot of cultural battles and then win some legislative battles.

00:31:49.080 And then the bureaucratic state finds a way to get around it anyway.

00:31:52.120 And that's kind of see again and again, um, as far as the leadership.

00:31:58.760 One, I think there is a perpetual, um, I'm trying to think how to charitably put it, but

00:32:04.840 there there's always sort of a chip on the evangelical shoulder that we are not the intellectuals and

00:32:09.740 the blue bloods that you see from this other kind of power base in Washington.

00:32:14.860 And maybe there's just always, um, a real flattery offensive that they're just so grateful to be at

00:32:20.860 the table, right?

00:32:21.880 Like when you see Rick Warren running out touting that he got invited to Davos or, you know,

00:32:28.180 the, um, council of foreign relations has included him.

00:32:31.260 There always just seems to be this gratitude that they get to be at the table.

00:32:35.320 And so I think that that's part of it is that then you start to amass, um, you look at somebody

00:32:40.000 like Russell Moore, well, now he's a Trinity forum fellow.

00:32:42.860 And now he's this other kind of fellow.

00:32:44.480 And it is this very champagne ministry kind of thing where now they're rubbing shoulders.

00:32:49.120 You know, these are guys who, you know, come from red, red States and they've been called

00:32:53.960 backwards Southerners all their lives.

00:32:55.460 And suddenly they're being seen as real intellectuals and they're being taken seriously.

00:32:58.820 And so I think that is a heady elixir for them.

00:33:01.480 Um, and then I also think that there are some transactional, explicitly transactional things

00:33:07.500 happening where, Hey, we're going to give you a job as the head of this organization. 0.85

00:33:11.780 And as you're moving up, you're going to reap some pretty big rewards, not just, you know,

00:33:16.420 a salary as the head of something, but also, um, book sales.

00:33:21.620 We're going to promote you all over.

00:33:23.240 You've suddenly got new book deals.

00:33:24.600 You've got new speaking and conference engagements that you didn't have before.

00:33:28.640 So I think all of that kind of feeds into it.

00:33:30.980 And it's just a way of capturing, uh, these individuals and look, this isn't a secret

00:33:35.980 either.

00:33:36.300 This isn't like me saying, this is kind of my theory about what's going on here.

00:33:40.640 You can actually look at something like, um, new America, which is a think tank that is

00:33:46.300 partially Soros funded and all the other, um, usual suspects fund this group.

00:33:51.380 And they have done analysis.

00:33:52.820 They are left-wing and they're like, how do we capture the evangelicals?

00:33:56.080 And they will talk about that.

00:33:57.760 This is their approach that, Hey, we're going to sort of wine and dine and flatter them and

00:34:03.000 hope that this trickle down influence occurs.

00:34:05.060 And they call it the rent and evangelical model built after the rent, a general model.

00:34:10.020 We're going to co-opt one of them and send them out onto all the TV shows.

00:34:14.000 And I don't even know, and I'll stop after this cause I don't want to ramble, but I don't

00:34:18.700 even know that the evangelical base is their ultimate audience.

00:34:23.520 I think they're just trying to convince in many cases, a Lankford or a Mike Johnson or

00:34:29.500 someone like that.

00:34:30.560 Hey, we're going to cover you and we're going to make sure you have the ground level support

00:34:36.040 to do what you're doing.

00:34:37.100 Um, so, you know, to a certain extent, it's almost like if we can just get the ball that

00:34:42.220 far down the field, then we can maybe get close enough to kick this goal and keep the

00:34:46.740 fans in the stands from running down onto the field and tackling us.

00:34:52.660 Do you think part of this problem?

00:34:54.720 And of course this, you know, immigration is our focus here, but this could just wildly

00:34:59.180 impact all of, I think, American culture.

00:35:02.000 It seems like, you know, obviously we had a wasp aristocracy in the United States for 1.00

00:35:07.580 a very long time.

00:35:08.580 And this is what defined our institutions.

00:35:10.940 This is more or less how we ended up, uh, you know, kind of with the culture that we had

00:35:15.900 also informed many of our immigration policies and, and, and how we wanted America to be formed

00:35:21.580 for a long time, but kind of post the Ellis Island swing.

00:35:25.900 It feels like while the wasps waned in their power, in many ways, it felt like they handed

00:35:32.760 it away more than anything else.

00:35:34.640 And evangelicals became probably the more, uh, energetic, um, uh, you know, kind of, uh,

00:35:42.300 Christian force inside the United States. 0.63

00:35:44.540 They never captured the status-making institutions that went along with that shift.

00:35:50.380 And demographically we saw, you know, Catholicism and, and, and others really kind of come in

00:35:56.280 and sweep in, in a, in a big way.

00:35:58.240 And so now the Supreme court, you know, try getting a, you know, evangelical Christian on

00:36:02.680 the Supreme court at this point, right?

00:36:04.380 Uh, you don't, you don't see a lot of that anymore.

00:36:06.740 And just in general, you never see the evangelicals actually capture these institutions that confer

00:36:12.420 status, convert, confer benefits.

00:36:14.240 And so when you have an evangelical leader who wants to feel like they're plugged in,

00:36:19.600 wants to feel like they're on the ascent part of the ruling class, they have to come,

00:36:23.860 like you said, kind of begging hat in hand to someone else, uh, some other force, some

00:36:28.380 other cultural force in order to have those benefits conferred onto them.

00:36:32.380 Do you think there's anything to that?

00:36:33.680 The fact that, that evangelicals never ascended to the, those halls of power in the same way

00:36:38.880 as to why it was easy to shift the opinions of at least the leadership class inside the

00:36:43.960 evangelical movement.

00:36:46.240 Yeah.

00:36:46.700 I mean, I definitely think that is a part of it.

00:36:48.720 And I also think though, you do have that conquest law that they do establish institutions

00:36:54.040 that over time do become prestigious and well-recognized.

00:36:58.560 And then as soon as they start to make that turn, you just see the same old leftist capture

00:37:03.200 of them.

00:37:03.760 Um, they become attractive enough that the young intellectuals who, you know, maybe grew

00:37:08.820 up evangelical, but have something of a despising my church back home thing and wanting to distance

00:37:13.720 themselves from the rabble that they grew up with, um, start to take these organizations 0.56

00:37:18.120 in different directions.

00:37:19.040 I mean, if you look at something like, if you're familiar with the Trinity forum, which

00:37:22.360 has now become an explicitly never Trump think tank, but this think tank that is, you

00:37:28.980 know, now traveling in those blue blood circles did not start out that way.

00:37:33.440 Oz Guinness founded it, I think in the nineties and, you know, he is an intellectual, but he

00:37:40.420 was a true Christian intellectual that really did try to keep it separate from politics.

00:37:44.840 It was about higher things and he defines himself as evangelical.

00:37:49.760 And now you look at what Trinity forum has become since Oz Guinness stepped down.

00:37:54.620 It was like immediately, um, the former, I think she was the speech writer to Laura Bush

00:37:59.200 came in or chief of staff to Laura Bush came in and it became sort of an extension of this

00:38:04.240 Bush blue blood conservatism.

00:38:07.540 And that entire organization was entirely co-opted and you see something very similar with Christianity 0.57

00:38:13.340 today.

00:38:14.180 So yes, I think there is a desire to be in those organizations to say, if we can get a seat at

00:38:21.920 those tables, then we also are prestigious and elite and respected, but they also sort

00:38:26.940 of serve up the organizations that we already have.

00:38:29.540 So when we do start to build one, they kind of give them away when they get the chance.

00:38:33.700 You see that with Christianity today. 1.00

00:38:35.180 I mean, that was Billy Graham.

00:38:36.480 I don't think anybody looks at Billy Graham as a particular elitist.

00:38:40.100 And yet you look at what's happened to that magazine today.

00:38:42.740 It is the voice of, um, it's almost mainline now in its voice, right?

00:38:48.240 So it's almost like when you see the things that they write about and the preoccupations,

00:38:52.720 they keep a very, very almost like lip service tone as far as sexual morality, but they write

00:39:02.280 about it as little as possible.

00:39:03.800 They certainly don't get involved on the ground level.

00:39:06.720 Um, red state bills, some of the executive power that's being wielded, they find that icky.

00:39:11.840 So they write a lot of articles about pluralism and things of that nature.

00:39:16.400 And it's almost like when we do have a successful organization, those guys come in and they give

00:39:20.680 it away.

00:39:21.960 So I want to ask you this and I, to be fair, I have an opinion because I wrote a book on

00:39:26.380 it, but I want to float this to you since this is relevant to our current question.

00:39:30.380 My theory is that the enemy is scale and that actually you cannot organize meaningfully, uh,

00:39:37.580 certain types of organizations beyond a particular point without them being

00:39:41.820 subverted and becoming institutionally left wing.

00:39:44.780 And I think this is why, especially when it comes to Christianity, we've seen this huge 1.00

00:39:49.600 shift.

00:39:50.060 You can't go to a church beyond a couple hundred members and not notice that all of a sudden

00:39:55.320 the people in charge, uh, look a lot more like CEOs than they do ministers that everybody

00:40:01.380 has shifted.

00:40:02.760 And, you know, their, their focus from, uh, the preaching of God's word and the application

00:40:07.460 of it practically to individual people into like figuring out, you know, what kind of,

00:40:13.080 uh, spreadsheet will best, uh, explain the amount of even, uh, evangelism we're doing,

00:40:18.620 the numbers we can pump up, the way we can break down the metrics and apply all these

00:40:22.920 things.

00:40:23.420 But once you start moving into bureaucratic, uh, systematic thinking, once you start, uh, kind

00:40:28.260 of approaching people in this way, you necessarily will shift in a particular direction.

00:40:32.880 And I wonder what you think about the possibility of the fact that many of our Christian organizations

00:40:38.140 have attempted to scale up in this way and centralize, um, necessarily makes them a victim

00:40:44.760 to this mentality of, they will eventually basically adopt the attitudes of the managerial

00:40:49.420 class.

00:40:49.860 And those managerial attitudes and understandings of how to handle people, approach people and

00:40:54.860 acquire status will eventually pull their organization in a, in a left-wing direction.

00:40:59.640 I mean, yeah, that seems to be the case.

00:41:03.520 I mean, you go even all the way back to like Machen, you, you don't really see those institutions.

00:41:08.720 They had to go, he had to go found something new and now that thing has gone left-wing.

00:41:13.600 So you don't ever really see them come back except for there are a couple of outstanding

00:41:19.660 examples and Southern Baptist convention was famously one of them for its conservative resurgence

00:41:24.580 in the eighties and nineties.

00:41:25.840 Really unusual.

00:41:26.860 Why that happened in that case is something that I think needs to be studied a lot more.

00:41:31.140 Like how were they able to pull that back from the brink when it's so very unusual?

00:41:36.160 Um, and I think what we're seeing right now is COVID arrested some of that in the church,

00:41:42.120 you know, shocking way that I don't think we would have seen without COVID.

00:41:45.560 Like, I think COVID pulled the mask away of what you're describing in such a way that suddenly

00:41:49.580 a lot of people sat up shocked and said there was such widespread failure that we are shocked

00:41:55.760 to find out how we are not represented by, um, our religious leadership.

00:42:00.380 So there's a revolt happening right now that wouldn't have happened without COVID.

00:42:05.420 And if COVID doesn't happen, does everyone still respect these publications like the gospel

00:42:11.100 coalition or something who are leaning into the very cycle that you're describing?

00:42:15.980 I, I think probably so.

00:42:18.300 And I think that, um, someone, someone described it to me as it's almost like they have an assembly

00:42:22.880 line of sweater vests and M divs.

00:42:25.960 And these are the only people who are respected and it's, it is such an elitist pose.

00:42:31.700 And I'm trying to think, what do you do about it?

00:42:33.920 Right.

00:42:34.260 In a fallen world, how do you keep that from happening?

00:42:37.280 Um, and I, I honestly don't know that I have an answer to it other than it's almost like

00:42:45.040 we have to embrace that Martin Luther spirit of combativeness, but at the same time, we're 0.89

00:42:51.620 like, we want to be gentle.

00:42:52.640 We want to, you know, not bring disunity, but I think that the, um, the default is always

00:42:59.300 kindness, right?

00:43:00.880 And the default is always, you know, don't stir up division.

00:43:04.520 And yet this keeps happening because the division isn't stirred.

00:43:08.500 And so maybe there just needs to be, you know, a greater theology of when is division necessary

00:43:15.740 and when is separation necessary?

00:43:17.320 And I think we don't talk about that enough.

00:43:19.260 Um, I think there's so much about how to be kind, how to be unified, that there's just

00:43:24.260 really not enough talk about, okay, so when is it worth it to just boldly confront people

00:43:29.020 to their face, because when that happens, you see, like, you're already seeing it in

00:43:32.440 the Southern Baptist convention.

00:43:33.400 Like it has been weird to me in the last two years going, all of these guys who have

00:43:37.780 been very squishy for a long time are suddenly posting like super based content.

00:43:42.620 And I'm like, what's happening here?

00:43:45.060 Like, how did y'all just spin on a dime?

00:43:47.220 And on, in one sense, I'm, I'm welcoming it.

00:43:49.660 Cause I'm like, okay, so y'all sense that a new wind is blowing and you're trying to get

00:43:53.800 out ahead of it, but I'm also kind of going without COVID.

00:43:57.600 I don't think we get here.

00:43:59.020 There is a, an uncomfortable truth that I think that a lot of people need to embrace,

00:44:04.100 which is the fact that like people, most people, even though they're sincere, perhaps,

00:44:10.740 you know, will ultimately follow where the wind takes them.

00:44:14.500 They will, they will go with the zeitgeist.

00:44:16.580 And so it really matters who's in control of that zeitgeist.

00:44:20.020 And if you, if you want to hold people accountable, you, you really ultimately need to be able to

00:44:25.900 be in control of, of kind of where that is moving.

00:44:29.060 And, uh, that, that doesn't mean that every individual who kind of follows that path is,

00:44:33.740 is duplicitous.

00:44:35.740 It doesn't mean they're a terrible person.

00:44:37.120 It's just how people are, you know, and, and, and you need to become more comfortable with the

00:44:41.500 fact that kind of elite opinion and, and power tend to lead people in the directions that

00:44:46.360 they go.

00:44:46.740 And so if people feel like power in the SBC is heading a particular direction, then they

00:44:52.480 will line up that direction.

00:44:53.960 Uh, and that, you know, maybe that doesn't make everyone terrible.

00:44:56.640 That just makes them human.

00:44:58.080 Um, but before we get to the questions of the people, which are starting to stack up here,

00:45:02.020 uh, I just want to ask you one more thing.

00:45:03.960 David French obviously was invited, uh, to the Presbyterians, uh, I believe it's the PCA,

00:45:10.740 uh, their, uh, their, uh, meeting, uh, he was going to be a speaker and, and I believe

00:45:16.320 one of these panels, uh, and there was such a backlash that he was disinvited.

00:45:21.220 Is that, is that heartwarming for you?

00:45:23.020 Does that give you some hope that, that, that, that the subversion isn't always complete,

00:45:26.820 like you said, you, you could have pushback and things like, uh, the Southern Baptist

00:45:30.100 where you, where you see guys like this, who, uh, otherwise would have been able to pass

00:45:33.660 themselves off as, you know, one of the good Christians and, uh, you know, just, just

00:45:37.640 moving on everyone towards hope and unity when they're actually just

00:45:40.600 there to obviously subvert.

00:45:42.400 Do you think that, that, that, uh, response because, because of kind of the backlash is,

00:45:46.940 is heartening, uh, in the direction that some of these denominations could be taking?

00:45:51.440 Yes, it was.

00:45:52.420 And I'll tell you, it wasn't even so much about David French.

00:45:54.680 It was about seeing that that particular argument of, Hey, let's be kind, let's be

00:45:59.620 unifying.

00:46:00.660 He's been invited.

00:46:01.540 Cause you did see that you saw them pushing like, Hey, it's just, I mean, you saw people

00:46:05.480 just, it's rude to not let this really divisive polarizing figure.

00:46:10.120 Come to our church gathering and lecture us about divisiveness.

00:46:15.020 And it was another one of those sort of managerial class moments where I think those who were in

00:46:21.520 the leadership of the PCA, and I'm not a Presbyterian, so I don't know it in depth, but my sense of

00:46:25.500 it, knowing a lot of them and talking to a lot of them was that, um, the stated clerk who

00:46:30.620 was running this thing was shocked himself to see the backlash that he got.

00:46:36.140 Because I think that, you know, pre COVID and pre COVID David French, the assumption

00:46:40.860 was a lot of people might've disagreed with him, but it would have been unseemly to speak

00:46:47.380 out against having him.

00:46:48.900 And so I think they didn't realize, Hey, um, we're in a new moment and people were much

00:46:53.240 more willing to speak up and say, no, we don't want to hear from that guy anymore.

00:46:56.920 We've heard plenty enough from that guy.

00:46:58.640 And I'll be honest with you, if Tim Keller was, we're still alive, this might've played

00:47:02.480 out differently.

00:47:03.540 Um, I think he was a major figure for saying that, um, we, we have to reach the cities.

00:47:09.200 We have to reach the elite.

00:47:11.760 And it's interesting.

00:47:14.020 I, I very curious what might have happened if Tim Keller had still been with us to maybe

00:47:19.880 rally the, um, managerial class troops and tamp down on some of the backlash.

00:47:25.200 But, um, yeah, between that and COVID, I think people were just done.

00:47:30.760 Interesting.

00:47:31.300 All right.

00:47:31.600 Well guys, we're going to switch over to the questions of the people here real quick, the

00:47:35.160 super chats before we do, Megan, can you tell people, I know you've got a book coming out

00:47:39.700 soon, so you can tell them about that and where to find the rest of your work.

00:47:43.060 Yes.

00:47:43.580 So, um, new book is shepherds for sale, how, uh, evangelical leaders traded the truth for

00:47:49.520 a leftist agenda.

00:47:50.420 And I go into a lot of this in a lot more depth and on a number of subjects, um, from

00:47:55.240 immigration to me too, to climate change, to all kinds of hijinks that a lot of, um, 0.73

00:48:00.700 left-wing leaders have been getting up to in the church.

00:48:03.440 Uh, and you can always find me, I'm on Twitter and Instagram, I guess X now I'm on X, but

00:48:07.960 I'm at Meg Basham.

00:48:09.320 And that's where, um, I tend to fritter away and waste most of my time and procrastinate and

00:48:16.060 curse.

00:48:16.760 So come see me there.

00:48:18.880 I'm always calling it Twitter.

00:48:20.120 They can't make me call it anything else.

00:48:21.600 I know.

00:48:21.820 I can correct it as many times as they want them.

00:48:24.180 I'm calling it Twitter forever.

00:48:25.760 All right.

00:48:26.300 So Florida Henry says, uh, is this another case of managerialism corrupting the church?

00:48:32.360 I've dealt with Americans, uh, dealt with Americans with NGOs overseas and they hate the U.S. 0.55

00:48:39.060 Yeah.

00:48:39.340 I totally believe that American NGOs hate the U.S.

00:48:42.760 That would, that would be, uh, a pretty, pretty easy thing to believe.

00:48:46.120 But yeah, I think we over, we kind of already touched on it some, but, uh, definitely a case

00:48:50.160 of managerialism in the, uh, in the church, Megan.

00:48:53.500 Oh yeah, absolutely.

00:48:54.520 And here's the good, I mean, well, it's bad news, but it's also like, look, this isn't

00:48:58.060 new.

00:48:58.320 We've been here before.

00:48:59.200 So, um, the church always prevails in the end.

00:49:02.800 That's true.

00:49:03.460 Yeah.

00:49:03.620 Not, not, not the first time I've heard the story of the, the structure of, uh, organized,

00:49:08.180 uh, you know, church overruling and, or trying to overtake something that God's trying to

00:49:12.680 do and failing in that sense.

00:49:14.620 Uh, let's see.

00:49:15.920 Gregory says, uh, Christ took, uh, took it for granted that people would love themselves

00:49:20.780 and their friends.

00:49:21.900 Modern self-loathing is at best an extreme overreaction to Christ's command to love enemies,

00:49:26.880 if not a contradiction.

00:49:29.140 Yeah, it is a strange thing.

00:49:30.620 I think people have a hard, you know, because of kind of the way that that's been repeated

00:49:33.760 so often people lose the context.

00:49:35.980 Like the reason that that commandment has force is that Christ is assuming the normal human 0.70

00:49:41.020 reaction that you will care about yourself and your family and your neighbor, and then

00:49:45.700 therefore take that and apply elsewhere.

00:49:47.980 But if you don't care about your family, as you said, when you're, you're Dickens, uh,

00:49:52.460 response, then, uh, that, that commandment kind of loses all meaning when you, uh, use

00:49:56.760 it as an excuse to not love the people around you and, uh, just folk, you know, throw, throw

00:50:01.000 your money in symbiotically away while hating everyone, uh, right next to you.

00:50:05.740 Yeah.

00:50:06.160 It's almost like there's a verse that if you're not caring for your own family, you're worse

00:50:10.040 than an unbeliever.

00:50:11.120 So it feels like that verse should have some application as well.

00:50:14.340 Yeah.

00:50:14.540 It's just like, you need like a whole context for the Bible and not just a couple choice

00:50:19.280 words whenever you want to use them to further your political agenda.

00:50:22.540 Uh, let's see here.

00:50:24.800 Uh, I think glow in the dark here, you might've, uh, super chatted one of your responses to

00:50:29.320 someone else in the chat there, but thank you.

00:50:31.760 Uh, then you have your actual questions here.

00:50:34.300 He says, uh, Christians got lazy and took, uh, for granted.

00:50:39.200 Uh, they, uh, got drunk on success, uh, in the big, getting drunk on success is the big

00:50:45.420 killer of ambition and true lasting success.

00:50:47.840 Yes, flattery dulls the mind given, uh, uh, given liberally evangelicals did that too

00:50:53.740 much.

00:50:54.240 Uh, just getting to the table is the beginning.

00:50:58.120 Uh, so let me ask you this.

00:51:00.100 Do you think that a lot of what happened was that Christians are just kind of assumed that

00:51:05.940 we would continue to have this background radiation of Christian culture that we would 0.99

00:51:10.920 all have always have this cultural Christianity.

00:51:13.200 And so therefore they didn't need to stay in charge of certain institutions or for their

00:51:18.860 beliefs inside certain organizations, because ultimately they would just, they kind of got

00:51:23.980 lazy assuming that that would just always be there for them.

00:51:26.500 And they didn't continue that to their patrimony.

00:51:29.560 Well, actually, you know, what's funny is you've actually had some of them like Russell Moore

00:51:33.680 and, um, I'm trying to remember his first name, but an Ortland, one of the Ortland, there's

00:51:38.140 several Ortland pastors.

00:51:39.200 One of them was out arguing that cultural Christianity is bad.

00:51:43.160 If we let cultural Christianity die, it's easier to then be a greater light, uh, in the 0.98

00:51:48.880 darkness.

00:51:49.380 And that will make it, um, more, more profitable for profitable in the sense of the kingdom to

00:51:55.520 go out and try to save souls.

00:51:57.740 And it was a really convoluted argument, but it was like, they were saying, look, if we go

00:52:02.240 ahead and let everything that is moral and just be corrupted, then it will be easier for

00:52:07.320 us to spread the gospel.

00:52:08.280 I mean, it was a really bizarre argument.

00:52:10.200 I didn't understand it, but they've gone so far as, you know, just saying, well, let's

00:52:13.920 just go ahead and let the culture re-paganize.

00:52:17.580 Yeah.

00:52:18.100 That's always a, uh, super entitled thing to hear from people.

00:52:22.400 Well, I grew up with a Christian culture and I benefited from, you know, thousands of years

00:52:27.820 of Christendom, you know, shaping a superior way of life.

00:52:31.660 Uh, but you know what?

00:52:32.880 You probably don't need that.

00:52:34.140 It's better off if all of your kids have to pick through the ashes of Christian civilization, 1.00

00:52:38.700 uh, cause ultimately it'll get rid of all the guys who were only going on church to Sunday

00:52:42.340 cause they had to.

00:52:43.420 Uh, no.

00:52:44.380 And, and owning none of why cultural Christianity has died. 0.67

00:52:49.180 I'm like, if, if the church is being, you know, complete, that only happens if the church

00:52:53.620 is silent and not salty and not spreading any light.

00:52:56.400 So how do you get a dark culture? 0.97

00:52:58.700 It's because you've covered up a lot of light.

00:53:00.980 Yeah.

00:53:01.540 Yeah.

00:53:01.720 It seems, it seems like a lot of excuses for failed battles, ultimately just saying at

00:53:06.360 the end of the day, well, you know, just deal with the fact that we've, we've led you

00:53:10.160 to ruin here.

00:53:11.320 Uh, Cripper Weirder says, okay, so do we need to bring in the Freemasons?

00:53:14.780 I don't, I don't know.

00:53:16.380 Of course we have a lot of Freemasonry symbolism in our founding, but I don't know if that's,

00:53:22.260 that's the answer going forward.

00:53:24.000 Uh, let's see a little more from glow in the dark here.

00:53:26.120 He says, it's always easy to go with the flow.

00:53:28.260 That's what everyone, uh, that's what everyone struggles with going down.

00:53:31.500 The authority path is needed, which creates a gnashing of teeth.

00:53:34.840 I think that definitely pushes back against the, the being or push goes along with what

00:53:38.640 you're saying about pushing back and not always being nice.

00:53:41.240 Uh, for sure here, uh, the problem with joining the elite is becoming one of them.

00:53:46.040 Don't attempt to join them, attempt to change them or lead them on the right path.

00:53:50.480 I think ultimately that is actually a good point.

00:53:52.500 Uh, I think we do need a more parallel elitism.

00:53:56.520 Uh, I think that's what a lot of people are starting to realize that sending one or two

00:54:00.400 evangelicals into elite circles, turns them into part of the managerial elite, not in the 0.62

00:54:05.580 managerial elite into evangelicals.

00:54:07.340 More and more what we need to see are alternative institutions that build up, uh, prestige and

00:54:13.940 power inside, perhaps a Christian community that can then use that to reach out rather than

00:54:19.600 trying to shove individual Christians into positions of power and expecting them to hold 1.00

00:54:23.840 fast to their values.

00:54:25.620 Yeah.

00:54:26.120 And it does seem like, I mean, I know it sounds a little Sisyphean, but we may just have to

00:54:30.580 accept that this is going to be part of the process till, you know, the kingdom comes is that

00:54:35.240 we will continually build institutions and they will grow because they're ministering to people

00:54:39.740 and speaking truth and then they will be co-opted.

00:54:41.920 And then we have to go and build new institutions.

00:54:43.940 That's right.

00:54:44.300 Maybe that's just the cycle.

00:54:46.140 And I think that's really important because people will get, people get really down on

00:54:50.680 this.

00:54:50.980 They really get, uh, very pessimistic because the, you know, the thing they built doesn't

00:54:55.160 last forever.

00:54:55.800 It's like, well, you were kind of warned that actually none of this will last forever until

00:54:59.600 Christ comes back.

00:55:00.480 So you should probably take that under advisement.

00:55:02.580 And yeah, like, you know, empires will rise, empires will fall, you know, organizations

00:55:06.720 will rise, organizations will fall.

00:55:08.520 That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be doing good and you shouldn't be caring and you shouldn't

00:55:12.560 be taking care of your community and passing it on to your children in the meantime.

00:55:15.980 Don't, don't become a black pillar just because, uh, you know, one particular thing didn't last

00:55:21.180 until Christ got back.

00:55:23.100 And you don't know what's going to succeed and what isn't.

00:55:25.340 So I still fight for these institutions that seem salvageable, you know?

00:55:28.620 Absolutely.

00:55:29.320 I think that's good advice.

00:55:30.580 Laura Henry says, apologies on the manager girl question.

00:55:32.580 I should have waited.

00:55:33.160 No problem, man.

00:55:33.940 Not, not an issue at all.

00:55:35.260 Glad we were able to get that out for you.

00:55:37.080 All right, guys.

00:55:38.080 Well, I want to thank Megan, of course, for coming on.

00:55:40.560 Make sure that you pre-order that new book and you are checking out all of her stuff.

00:55:45.460 And of course, if this is your first time on my YouTube channel, go ahead and subscribe.

00:55:49.800 Make sure that you go ahead and turn on notifications.

00:55:53.040 Click the bell so you can catch our streams when they go live.

00:55:56.280 If you want to get these broadcasts as podcasts, make sure that you go ahead and subscribe to

00:55:59.760 The Ora McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast platform.

00:56:02.500 And if you've not yet picked up The Total State, make sure that you do that.

00:56:06.560 I'll be appearing on Academic Agent's channel here as soon as I'm done with this broadcast

00:56:11.880 to talk about the book.

00:56:13.240 I'll be on a couple other media hits this week talking about it as well.

00:56:16.320 So make sure to check that out.

00:56:17.660 Thank you, everybody, for watching.

00:56:18.820 And as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - May 20, 2024

Have Evangelicals Been Betrayed on Immigration？｜ Guest： Megan Basham ｜ 5⧸20⧸24

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The Auron MacIntyre Show - May 20, 2024

Have Evangelicals Been Betrayed on Immigration？ ｜ Guest： Megan Basham ｜ 5⧸20⧸24

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Have Evangelicals Been Betrayed on Immigration？｜ Guest： Megan Basham ｜ 5⧸20⧸24