The King's Hall - Duke Godfrey of Bouillon and the First Crusade

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00:00:56.600 as c.s lewis wrote in his essay the necessity of chivalry the old model of masculinity espoused

00:01:09.400 in medieval knighthood was a bedrock principle of western civilization because it held together

00:01:14.700 two seemingly contradictory categories the man as a savage and the man as a gentleman

00:01:20.320 one embodiment of this ideal would be william wallace the warrior poet

00:01:24.600 He could think and he could kill. He could give life and take it. And just as importantly,

00:01:30.180 he could discern the proper time for each. He could read poetry, speak fluently in Latin,

00:01:35.780 discuss Dante, and yet walk among commoners with a familiar and friendly touch. He could establish

00:01:41.400 godly laws, enact justice, and hold a newborn in his arms. Lewis's concern after two brutal world

00:01:47.980 Wars, was that the West had lost this proper masculine balance. In turn, some men became

00:01:54.520 ferocious monsters, utterly lacking any semblance of humanity, and thus tyrants or merciless

00:02:00.460 soldiers. For example, Western leaders unflinchingly gassed and butchered their brothers in the

00:02:06.120 trenches, totally without remorse. Other men became tame men, absent of courage altogether,

00:02:12.300 either soulless bureaucrats or spineless intellectuals who ceased to have principles

00:02:16.860 worth defending at all. Lewis writes, if we cannot produce Lancelots, humanity falls into two

00:02:23.520 sections, those who can deal in blood and iron, but cannot be meek in hall, and those who are meek

00:02:29.500 in hall, but useless in battle. The ideal, of course, would be to have both qualities, speaking

00:02:36.080 well in the King's Hall and waging war on the field of battle. Of the chivalric ideal in the

00:02:41.900 Knight, Lewis also wrote, the knight is a man of blood and iron, familiar with the sight of smashed

00:02:47.980 faces and the ragged stumps of lopped off limbs. He is also demure, almost maiden-like when a guest

00:02:54.180 in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or a happy mean between ferocity

00:03:00.760 and meekness. He is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth. It is also helpful to have set before us

00:03:07.240 examples of such men who were both fierce and meek to the nth degree. One such man was Godfrey

00:03:13.300 of Bouillon, a first-generation Christian crusader who was known both for his ferocity on the

00:03:18.660 battlefield and his pious meekness among his comrades. As we explore Godfrey's life in today's

00:03:24.840 episode of the King's Hall podcast, we'll be examining his life as a model of the chivalric

00:03:29.960 ideal. Along the way, we'll ask some important questions. How can men today be both fierce and

00:03:35.680 meek? Why did we lose the proper masculine balance? And perhaps most importantly, how do we

00:03:41.540 recover this balance? On November 18th, 1095, Pope Urban II delivered his famous speech at Claremont

00:03:49.400 calling for a crusade to Jerusalem. One of the first to heed this call, Godfrey of Bouillon.

00:03:55.360 Godfrey was born in 1060 AD, the second son of Eustace II, Count of Bouillon. He was of Germanic

00:04:02.560 stock and a direct descendant of Charlemagne on his mother's side. His parents determined his

00:04:07.820 occupation, which would be as a knight. It turned out to be a providential decision. Godfrey would

00:04:13.200 go down in history as one of the greatest defenders of Western Christendom, responsible

00:04:18.340 for beating back the Muslim threat. Like all future knights, Godfrey began his military training

00:04:24.360 before the age of 10. He was very gifted and described as an energetic young man,

00:04:29.620 very eager for military action. William of Tyre, a popular chronicler of the times,

00:04:36.080 gives a description of Godfrey upon his coming of age. He was tall of stature, not extremely so,

00:04:42.080 but still taller than the average man. He was strong beyond compare, with solidly built limbs

00:04:48.220 and stalwart chest. His features were pleasing, his beard and hair of medium blonde. A physical

00:04:54.800 specimen, Godfrey's two main passions in life were mastering the art of war and his pious devotion

00:05:00.640 to Christ. Even his European rivals recognized his rare blend of seemingly contradictory qualities.

00:05:07.320 Godfrey was both merciful and humble, pious and violent, prayerful and cunning on the battlefield.

00:05:13.560 In this way, Godfrey exemplified the chivalric ideal. He was a knightly man in possession of

00:05:19.300 great strength, yet he kept it under perfect control. He could cut an enemy in half with

00:05:24.520 the stroke of a sword one moment and show mercy to a widow in the next. Reports about him capture

00:05:30.320 this intriguing, almost contradictory set of traits, leading some to say that he was more

00:05:35.200 akin to a monk than a soldier. Others rightly spoke of his utter competence as a military leader.

00:05:41.880 Not only was he one of the best commanders of his era, but historians would rank him among the best

00:05:47.340 military heroes of all time. Among his own men, Godfrey was so renowned for his feats in war

00:05:53.920 that he became known simply as the Duke.

00:05:57.260 When Godfrey heard the call to the Crusades,

00:05:59.800 he acted with unshaking resolve,

00:06:02.120 mortgaging his vast estates to raise an army.

00:06:05.280 He would set out for Asia Minor

00:06:06.880 on the date the Pope decreed in August 1096.

00:06:10.660 One of the five main military leaders of the First Crusade,

00:06:14.500 Godfrey was the first to arrive at Byzantium in late 1096.

00:06:18.720 His army was 80,000 strong

00:06:20.600 with 10,000 knights and 70,000 infantry.

00:06:24.520 After swearing his allegiance to Emperor Alexius Comnenus of Byzantium,

00:06:29.840 Godfrey was the first crusader to sail into Asia Minor, landing in Nicomedia.

00:06:35.460 Soon, Godfrey was joined by the other crusaders, and together they besieged Nicaea.

00:06:40.880 Though the Christians operated a brutal siege, the Muslims held out for a long period of time.

00:06:46.160 Their cries of Allah Akbar reigned through the skies.

00:06:50.320 The Christians attempted to use a battering ram to enter the city,

00:06:53.080 but the Muslims managed to destroy it.

00:06:55.660 For intimidation, they sent a massive, hulking Saracen man

00:06:59.560 to walk about the ramparts of Nicaea,

00:07:02.000 killing Christians with his bow and blaspheming Christ.

00:07:05.480 Unable to bear such an assault upon his men and his religion,

00:07:09.660 Godfrey took up his crossbow

00:07:11.020 and pierced the Muslim leader through the heart with a single shot.

00:07:15.560 On May 20th, the Sultan Kilij Arslan stormed Nicaea

00:07:19.940 to rescue his capital city from the hands of the Christian forces.

00:07:23.540 He attacked the crusaders from behind with a large force,

00:07:27.020 prompting a furious battle.

00:07:29.120 Much blood was shed,

00:07:30.440 but his army was ultimately destroyed by Godfrey

00:07:33.460 and his co-general, Bohemond of Toronto.

00:07:37.080 After eliminating the sultan's army,

00:07:39.380 Godfrey turned his attention back to the siege of Nicaea.

00:07:42.780 To send a clear message to the inhabitants of the city,

00:07:45.820 Godfrey and the other leaders

00:07:47.240 lobbed the heads of the slaughtered Muslims over the city walls. Stricken with terror,

00:07:52.700 the city surrendered just a few weeks later. After they recovered some of their strength,

00:07:57.720 the Crusaders continued to march through Muslim territories seeking their ultimate target,

00:08:02.720 Jerusalem. The injured Sultan Arslan sought to enact revenge on Godfrey and his men and got the

00:08:09.120 chance when the Crusaders split their army to forage for much needed food. While they were

00:08:14.340 dispersed, Arsalan attacked Bohemond's contingent with 30,000 men, targeting the women and children

00:08:20.140 in the company specifically. In great haste, Bohemond sent for aid, dispatching a rider to

00:08:25.780 Godfrey. The man rode hard for hours in order to warn the duke, who acted quickly, bringing the

00:08:32.260 first of the Christian reinforcements to the fray. He commanded his cavalry to charge the Muslim

00:08:37.820 light infantry and eventually broke them. As a result, Arsalan's forces crumbled into a

00:08:43.560 disorderly retreat. The Christians lost 4,000 men compared to the 3,000 lost by Muslims,

00:08:49.220 but still managed to win the battle. After this loss, the Sultan was extremely resistant to engage

00:08:55.620 the Duke in open warfare. Riding a wave of victories, the Christians marched unopposed

00:09:01.020 for several months, but the Muslims had ruined the land and nothing edible could be found.

00:09:06.860 Desperate, the knights took up bows and arrows in an effort to hunt game. Godfrey joined the

00:09:12.300 hunting and while in the woods encountered a savage bear chasing a bloodied pilgrim. Undaunted,

00:09:18.420 Godfrey drew his sword and met the growling bear head on. In the fight, his horse was killed and

00:09:24.620 he was trapped underneath it. In the precarious lurch, Godfrey tried to defend himself while the

00:09:29.920 bear slashed at his face and throat. He tried to use his sword on the bear but only managed to

00:09:35.120 slice open his own hamstring. Finally, Godfrey was able to free his sword and plunge it to the hilt

00:09:41.060 in the bear's chest, thus vanquishing the enraged predator. Godfrey called for aid on his horn and

00:09:47.600 then lost consciousness while still trapped under the enormous weight of the dead bear.

00:09:52.680 His men found him and he was rushed back to camp where he would receive rudimentary medical

00:09:57.600 attention. After such an immense loss of blood, Godfrey, of course, fell ill. Despite his illness,

00:10:04.300 Godfrey marched his army onto Antioch, carried on a litter by his nervous men. Miraculously,

00:10:09.520 by the time they reached the city, he seemed to have recovered from his sickness. But rather than

00:10:15.160 enjoying any respite, Godfrey and his army would be plunged immediately back into the horrors of

00:10:20.800 medieval warfare. Upon their first engagement, the Muslim forces catapulted the heads of

00:10:26.120 decapitated Christians down on the standing crusader army, expecting to cow them as they

00:10:31.180 cowed their previous Christian foes. Unfazed, Godfrey responded by having the heads of Muslim

00:10:37.200 captives launched into the city. With this display of resolve, the duke laid siege to the city of

00:10:43.600 Antioch. Because of the city's impressive fortifications, however, the siege dragged on

00:10:48.940 for months. Eventually, Count Raymond and Bohemond traveled back to the port of St. Simeon to gather

00:10:55.300 supplies. On the way, they were ambushed by a raiding Muslim party. They sent word to Godfrey

00:11:01.000 to withdraw his men from Antioch and avoid the onslaught. Godfrey, naturally, ignored their

00:11:06.500 advice and met the Muslims in battle. Safety third. As Muslims chased Bohemian and Raymond back to

00:11:13.340 Antioch, Godfrey adjusted course to meet them in battle, temporarily abandoning the siege at

00:11:18.600 Antioch. As Godfrey left to help his brothers in arms, the Muslims within the city sensed an

00:11:23.960 opportunity to attack from behind. Muslim combatants streamed out of the city as the two

00:11:29.380 armies clashed with the sound of clanging steel and the cries of dying men. A violent wave of

00:11:35.740 Iron and death suffocated the landscape in horror.

00:11:39.660 Though he was surrounded on every side,

00:11:41.700 Godfrey, rather than giving way to despair,

00:11:44.640 simply roused his martial spirit

00:11:46.460 and made sport of the Muslim ambushers,

00:11:49.780 cutting off their heads one after the other.

00:11:52.780 Enraged as Godfrey's swift sword

00:11:54.960 turned their best warriors into food for the worms,

00:11:57.800 the Saracens sent a huge Turkish emir to crush him

00:12:00.960 in man-to-man single combat.

00:12:03.640 The mighty Muslim warrior was their camp's Goliath,

00:12:06.600 poised to end their suffering at the Duke's hand.

00:12:09.400 Robert the monk recounts the story as follows.

00:12:12.540 So the Muslim urged his horse towards Godfrey

00:12:15.340 with bloodstained spurs and lifting his sword high,

00:12:18.720 he sliced through the whole shield of the Duke,

00:12:21.540 which he held above his head.

00:12:23.400 If the Duke had not parried the blow

00:12:24.880 with the boss of the shield

00:12:26.100 and twisted it over to the other side,

00:12:28.540 he would have paid the debt of death.

00:12:30.180 the duke however ablaze with furious anger prepared to return the blow and thus aimed for the neck

00:12:37.180 he raised his sword and plunged it into the left side of the man's shoulder blades with such force

00:12:43.420 that it split the chest down the middle slashed through the spine and vital organs and slippery

00:12:49.060 with blood came out unbroken above the right leg as a result the whole of the head and the right

00:12:55.780 side of the man's corpse slipped down into the water whilst the part remaining on the horse

00:13:01.020 was carried back into the city. All those inside rushed together to see this horrible sight

00:13:06.360 and were struck with amazement, panic, and fear and overcome with terror. Here were the screams

00:13:12.320 like those of a woman in labor, their voices raised in misery because he had been one of their emirs.

00:13:18.700 Like David, Godfrey had defeated the enemy's best champion on the field of battle. With a single

00:13:24.600 sword stroke, and in a moment of absolute glory, he cut the giant of a man in half, thus sparking

00:13:30.520 an even greater hope in the Christian cause among its knights and commanders. The terrified Saracens

00:13:35.820 hastily retreated back into Antioch atop crazed and desperate horses, while Godfrey's forces killed

00:13:42.180 every enemy soldier left outside the city gates. Although the Christians won the battle, the siege

00:13:47.940 dragged on for seven brutal months, and by the end of it, the crusaders themselves were starving along

00:13:53.920 with the city. In desperation, Bowman convinced a Muslim captain to betray his people and open

00:14:00.220 the gates of Antioch to the crusaders. Once the gates were opened, in flooded the Christian army.

00:14:06.120 All of the Christians within the city walls chanted the Kyrie Eleison to show that they

00:14:11.180 were not Muslim and thus avoid the inevitable bloodbath. At long last, the bitter siege had

00:14:16.760 come to an end. Antioch was again under Christian rule. The ecstasy of victory, however, was

00:14:22.800 short-lived. A Muslim leader named Corboga brought his vast army to Antioch and surrounded it.

00:14:29.900 Previously the besiegers, the Christians were now the besieged. Corboga possessed 40,000 fighting

00:14:36.080 men, and by surrounding Antioch, he effectively severed the Christians' access to food and water,

00:14:42.180 leaving them starving and feral. He sat outside the city and camp, assuming his victory over the

00:14:48.220 depleted crusader armies was certain. One thing he had overlooked? The small detail of the identity

00:14:54.340 of the man that he had locked inside the city walls. The Duke would not be content with simply

00:14:59.900 waiting for death by starvation. Instead, Godfrey took the initiative. Because of the circumstances,

00:15:06.660 his men and horses were on the brink of starvation, Godfrey knew his only hope was to wage an all-out

00:15:11.540 attack as soon as possible. The Duke sent a courier to Kerboga with a simple message. He asked that

00:15:17.600 the Muslims surrender the city to be kept as a Christian inheritance for all time, and that they

00:15:22.280 would never return. If Kerboga refused, Godfrey would put all of the Muslims to the sword.

00:15:28.500 Godfrey's message was not well received by Kerboga and his emirs, who thought it was a joke.

00:15:34.460 Kerboga was disgusted and infuriated by the Duke's audacious peace terms. Of course, the Duke's plan

00:15:41.280 had not been to make peace, but to incite outrage, which is why he offered such brash treaty terms in

00:15:47.440 the first place. This was Godfrey's go big or go home moment. Thus, the Duke ordered his men to

00:15:53.440 hold a three-day fast, giving the remaining food to their horses. On the morning of the planned

00:15:58.340 battle, all Christian men partook of the Eucharist and said their battle prayers. Godfrey mustered

00:16:03.680 20,000 Christian soldiers and flung the doors of the city wide open. They came galloping out of

00:16:09.860 the city, swords drawn and a fearsome look in their eyes. Kerboga and his men, on the other hand,

00:16:15.440 were utterly shocked to see the crusaders attack an army twice as large as their own.

00:16:21.200 As the two armies collided, it was the Christians who fought with a desperate energy.

00:16:26.200 They simply had nothing to lose at that point. Arrow after arrow was launched by Muslim archers

00:16:30.860 into the Christian legions, but with thick armor, the knights survived, even as the arrows lodged

00:16:36.220 in their plating made them look like porcupines. The Muslims' courage snapped as the Christian

00:16:41.340 knights fought on, proving the skilled Muslim archers worthless. Spurred on by the valiant

00:16:47.140 Godfrey, tight formations and discipline from the Christian knights caused the lines of the Muslims

00:16:52.140 to break. The Saracens retreated in total chaos. Desperate to pursue them, the crusaders mounted

00:16:58.240 the Muslim horses that were left behind and renewed their chase. The Christians won the day,

00:17:03.160 but not without heavy losses. Raymond Ibrahim, in agreement with contemporary Muslim scholars,

00:17:08.980 claims that if the Christians had not suffered such great loss of life in the early battles

00:17:14.100 and because of disease, they would likely have overwhelmed all of Islam. Now that Antioch was

00:17:20.320 in Christian hands, the Crusaders bickered over who should rule the city. Godfrey had no patience

00:17:25.600 for such affairs, and he and his armies decided to march on to Jerusalem while others debated the

00:17:30.740 matter. The Duke's army was only a fraction of what it once had been. 80,000 men had been whittled

00:17:36.860 down to just 12,000 infantry and 1,200 knights. The journey was long and arduous, riddled with

00:17:43.640 perils of every kind. Yet the horrors that came before would pale in comparison to what lay ahead.

00:17:50.080 The crusaders would face plague, snakes, starvation, and harassment from the enemy

00:17:54.100 on their march to Jerusalem. On June 7, 1099, the crusaders, much depleted in number and strength,

00:18:02.220 stood before the walls of Jerusalem.

00:18:04.880 By then, the crusader forces numbered just 1,300 knights

00:18:08.440 and perhaps 10,000 infantry.

00:18:10.900 This number was reduced by roughly two-thirds

00:18:13.260 since the siege at Nicaea had begun two years previously.

00:18:16.800 They wept with joy for having arrived,

00:18:19.320 but yet they remained so far from accomplishing their mission.

00:18:23.100 They immediately set about laying siege to the city,

00:18:25.660 but it didn't give way so easily.

00:18:28.200 To make matters worse, the Muslim inhabitants

00:18:30.380 had blocked and poisoned the wells outside the city.

00:18:34.300 Then, Providence smiled on the Crusaders.

00:18:37.560 Six Christian ships had arrived from Genoa in England

00:18:40.560 at the port of Jaffa, about 25 miles away.

00:18:44.060 All six ships carried food,

00:18:46.060 but even more vital for the conquest,

00:18:48.420 they brought cargoes of ropes, nails, and bolts,

00:18:51.480 all necessary for the construction of siege machines.

00:18:54.940 By July 14th, the Crusaders had planned

00:18:57.580 to wage an all-out assault on Jerusalem.

00:19:00.380 Before they did, a certain man of God called for a painful regime of fasting

00:19:04.740 and continual prayers made in devotion to God.

00:19:08.020 A priest had received a vision that promised victory

00:19:10.440 if the crusaders put an end to their constant internal dissensions,

00:19:14.620 fasted, and walked around the city.

00:19:17.280 Much as the people of God did at Jericho in the book of Joshua,

00:19:19.940 the Christian army walked barefoot around the city with loud supplications.

00:19:24.680 Crosses held high.

00:19:26.140 The knights marched around the walls of Jerusalem.

00:19:28.960 They next congregated on the Mount of Olives

00:19:31.080 where Peter the hermit preached an impassioned sermon.

00:19:34.960 Muslims, for their part, jeered and shot arrows at the knights.

00:19:38.900 They spat on them and did not refrain from urinating on them

00:19:41.980 in the sight of all, as one chronicler counts.

00:19:44.900 Christians who survived would call the Muslim forces demonic and deranged.

00:19:49.440 Priests cried out,

00:19:50.200 Think of Christ, who until today has been outlawed and crucified in this city.

00:19:55.440 The final siege took place on the night of July 13th.

00:19:59.260 Miraculously, Godfrey and his men were able to get their siege tower right against the walls.

00:20:04.420 He stood atop the siege works, shooting Muslims with his crossbow.

00:20:08.240 For his part, Godfrey's men told a seemingly impossible story.

00:20:12.080 They said they had watched their leaders single-handedly raise a siege ladder against the walls.

00:20:17.180 Now, this is an object that is reported to have weighed around 800 pounds.

00:20:21.960 His men breached the city and opened its gates for the remainder of the Christian army.

00:20:26.680 Crusaders stormed the city and massacred the Muslim occupants, according to Raymond Ibrahim.

00:20:32.020 He goes on to write,

00:20:33.380 Young Tancred, who was among the first to enter, hacked his way till he reached the Dome of the Rock,

00:20:38.660 a mosque erected high above and looking down on the sepulcher of Christ,

00:20:43.280 and decorated with Quran verses denouncing Christian truths.

00:20:47.160 Its entryway was firm and inflexible, made of iron,

00:20:50.260 but Tancred, harder than iron, beat at it, broke it, wore it down, and entered.

00:20:56.900 He slaughtered his way into the building until he came face to face with a strange idol,

00:21:01.420 possibly an elaborate candelabrum containing oriental images foreign to the Frank.

00:21:06.460 Was it a Roman god, thought the bewildered man? No, it could only be one.

00:21:11.380 Wicked Muhammad! Evil Muhammad! He cried while smiting it.

00:21:15.580 If only his companion were here now, the one to come.

00:21:19.380 At this moment, my feet would stomp on both antichrists.

00:21:23.460 When the smoke had cleared and the bloodletting subsided at Jerusalem,

00:21:27.340 the surviving crusaders did what they had abandoned all

00:21:30.000 and endured years of deprivation and disease to do in the first place.

00:21:33.740 That is, they did what must seem amazing to modern sensibilities.

00:21:38.340 They cleansed and dressed themselves in white,

00:21:40.760 removed their shoes, held crosses,

00:21:43.240 and going to the sepulcher of the Lord and his glorious temple,

00:21:46.540 the clerics and also the laity,

00:21:47.960 singing a new song unto the Lord in a high-sounding voice of exaltation

00:21:52.000 and making offerings and most humble supplications,

00:21:55.240 joyously visited the holy place as they had so long desired to do.

00:21:59.880 Rodney Stark's concluding thoughts on the Crusades are helpful.

00:22:03.600 He writes this,

00:22:04.920 What Pope Urban had begun in that field in Claremont had now come to pass.

00:22:10.100 God's battalions had been victorious,

00:22:12.280 and the unbelievers had been driven from Jerusalem.

00:22:15.420 Almost immediately, large numbers of crusaders began to head for home.

00:22:19.240 After all, they had been gone much longer than anyone had expected.

00:22:23.220 Within several months, the crusader forces remaining in the Holy Land

00:22:26.480 had fallen to perhaps no more than 300 knights

00:22:29.160 and an unknown but not very large number of foot soldiers.

00:22:32.820 This was a very dangerous development, for surely Muslim forces would come again.

00:22:37.460 The Holy Land remained encircled by a large Muslim world.

00:22:41.740 Unfortunately, no plans had been made at the outset for maintaining a liberated Jerusalem

00:22:47.020 because it was thought that the Byzantines would take the lead.

00:22:50.480 No one believed that now.

00:22:52.160 Thus, the question that had been bothering many leading crusaders for several years was,

00:22:56.760 how can our miraculous achievement be sustained?

00:22:59.420 After Jerusalem was secure, a ruler had to be chosen.

00:23:03.400 Godfrey was put forward as a candidate against his own wishes.

00:23:06.920 The candidate's soldiers were interviewed

00:23:08.620 so that the electors could understand

00:23:10.640 the moral character of the nominees.

00:23:13.260 About the election, Ibrahim says,

00:23:15.820 when it came to Godfrey, his men on oath

00:23:18.140 said the most vexing thing they recalled him doing

00:23:20.960 was spending an inordinate amount of time in church

00:23:23.820 after mass had concluded

00:23:25.160 and questioning the clergy on theological issues

00:23:28.100 so that they, his companions, became excessively bored.

00:23:32.280 Worse, the meal prepared for them after mass

00:23:34.680 had grown cold and tasteless.

00:23:36.280 After this interview, Godfrey was unanimously chosen to be king of Jerusalem.

00:23:41.940 Godfrey reluctantly accepted the position on one condition.

00:23:46.680 He would not be called king of Jerusalem, but instead defender of the holy sepulcher.

00:23:52.360 God forbid, he said, that I should be crowned with a crown of gold where my savior bore a crown of thorns.

00:23:58.980 Godfrey reigned only a short time in Jerusalem before his death in 1100 AD.

00:24:03.940 During his life, he was a great Christian man

00:24:06.260 who embodied the chivalric ideal.

00:24:08.700 He was an impressive leader,

00:24:10.240 a strong military strategist, and a powerful warrior.

00:24:13.980 The First Crusade would assuredly have faltered without him.

00:24:17.260 Christendom may have retreated even further than it did

00:24:20.120 apart from his massive efforts.

00:24:22.340 Godfrey proved himself a valiant and courageous man

00:24:24.940 during the grueling campaign

00:24:26.180 and was affectionately and reverently known

00:24:28.700 in Christendom as a hero.

00:24:30.900 In his life, he was Christendom's greatest warrior.

00:24:34.100 As a reflection of his character,

00:24:35.860 he was known simply as the Duke.

00:24:38.780 The King's Hall podcast exists

00:24:40.440 to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world.

00:24:52.480 Brian, I noticed you've been drinking a lot of coffee

00:24:55.300 from that K-cup machine.

00:24:57.240 Yeah, man, I've been microplastic maxing lately.

00:25:00.160 Dude, that sounds terrible.

00:25:01.780 It's, uh, it's not great.

00:25:04.060 Well, I've been making my coffee with the single origin beans from Lux Coffee.

00:25:09.120 Hold up.

00:25:09.560 You're drinking artisan coffee?

00:25:11.380 Who even are you?

00:25:12.440 I'm Benjamin Flippin' Garrett, dude.

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00:25:25.720 I've got to try this coffee for myself.

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00:28:48.560 Welcome to this episode of the King's Hall Podcast.

00:28:51.200 I'm joined today by Duke Brian Godfrey Sauve.

00:28:55.360 Thank you.

00:28:56.120 Welcome to the show.

00:28:56.880 Brian, we're here really to ask and answer one fundamental question.

00:29:01.560 That's right.

00:29:02.240 Can you take me higher to a place where blind men sing?

00:29:06.340 I can.

00:29:06.840 Which is what I grew up thinking the lyric was.

00:29:09.660 Blind men can sing.

00:29:10.540 And I was like, blind men can sing here.

00:29:13.280 And then it hit me far too late, like far later than it should have.

00:29:17.580 Yes.

00:29:18.220 That the correspondence between sight and blindness made the other lyric far more likely.

00:29:24.580 Wow.

00:29:24.940 Interesting.

00:29:25.660 Yeah.

00:29:25.900 I am what you call highly intelligent.

00:29:29.260 I've been trying to talk to Martina McBride about our production.

00:29:32.100 Yeah.

00:29:32.760 And speaking of, you know, taking people higher.

00:29:35.340 Yeah.

00:29:36.080 I want this to feel like Creed at the Dallas Cowboys halftime show.

00:29:40.720 This episode?

00:29:41.620 Yes.

00:29:42.080 Yeah, whatever it takes.

00:29:42.800 There should be people writing curtains of whatever that was.

00:29:48.460 Like heavy metal guitar.

00:29:50.020 Our hair should be flowing in the wind as we're just absolutely belting out the praises of Godfrippweon.

00:29:55.920 You can be the bassist from Creed.

00:29:58.500 I will be Scott Stapp.

00:29:59.560 your terms are acceptable i i guess why do i have to be the lamest instrument sorry bass players but

00:30:10.220 you got to have some self-awareness well we'll get to this in the show but i mean scott staff

00:30:14.780 really is kind of the ideal of chivalry i don't know eric if i'd go that far um believe it or not

00:30:24.580 that's not none of this has been in the notes really i mean there's not a lot in the notes

00:30:29.900 that is unbelievable yeah we're just vibing we're just vibing right now when you read about godfrey

00:30:35.820 uh-huh say it for me bouillon bouillon is uh what's the chippewa for bouillon

00:30:42.900 yeah they would have deeply respected godfrey i think muckabay means black

00:30:53.640 oh yeah it does it means black so i just said black

00:30:57.500 i don't even know i don't even know it's somehow james white is offended at this already i'm sure

00:31:06.580 listen no homo we're gonna press on here we go there is a lot of man love though for a hero like

00:31:13.660 godfrey before we dive into that yeah uh brian we do have an after hours program yes we do it's

00:31:19.940 patron only so it's exclusive we do you pretty much have to be you got to be in the inner circle

00:31:25.980 you got to be you got to be able to when you try to sign up it asks for your bench press

00:31:30.840 and there's limits based on your weight like how much you weigh or you have to do three times your

00:31:37.340 body weight oh i'm in i mean like that's difficult obviously i i would have to bench 600 pounds so

00:31:44.600 that's my warm-up that's your warm-up yes but we are going to be talking about a question that i

00:31:50.820 know you've been pondering a lot i haven't actually told brian what the question i have no idea what's

00:31:54.540 about to come out of eric's mouth no idea but we've been getting your comments from we get them

00:31:59.680 through buzzsprout but people when you are uh going to the itunes or spotify you can send us a comment

00:32:07.220 now the funniest ones i got nobody goes to itunes how old are you

00:32:13.560 there are no podcasts on itunes what is this apple podcast i had my yeah i had my son set up

00:32:24.720 my podcast feed yeah yeah that explains it okay yeah sorry to interrupt i just want to make sure

00:32:30.500 no one attempts to find us on itunes we're not there we're not there you have to go to napster

00:32:35.800 When you're putting on your vinyl record of the King's Hall.

00:32:38.620 Look, you can pirate it at Napster.

00:32:40.440 Yeah.

00:32:40.840 You might actually be able to do that.

00:32:42.160 I don't know.

00:32:42.740 Yes.

00:32:43.120 I think you could do that.

00:32:44.200 Why would you pirate it?

00:32:44.920 It's free.

00:32:45.520 Like, it's just there.

00:32:46.560 Anyway, go ahead.

00:32:47.420 Yes.

00:32:48.100 I have no idea.

00:32:49.160 But we'll be answering the question, does monoculture mean monoethnic?

00:32:55.880 We did our monocultures episode, and somebody had said, essentially, that they live in a place where there's a lot of Cubans and Mexicans.

00:33:05.800 am i not allowed to be friends with them and um the yeah you can't be friends with them

00:33:12.500 anymore martina mcbride is out dang dang it ah and i really like him yes so we'll be people like

00:33:21.080 i got all these i really like my cuban buddy over here like do i have to is the king's all saying

00:33:25.100 i gotta i gotta disown him turn him into ice it depends we'll talk about it on yeah it we'll talk

00:33:34.540 it does depend uh martina you're good you stay you're good martin stays martin stays um so we'll

00:33:40.740 be talking about that patreon exclusive show yeah it's gonna be i mean a real banger it's gonna be

00:33:46.120 wild it's gonna be wild fun uh what i do want to jump into now is just this discussion on godfrey

00:33:51.500 uh first of all just the man his feet we have a friend very very close friend who you know might

00:33:59.080 have a son named duke godfrey like literally his name is literally duke godfrey last name

00:34:07.940 i mean right you had the opportunity though okay i did and you made the mistake of naming your

00:34:14.420 daughter well that was the thing is that we didn't find out on number seven boy or girl we didn't

00:34:20.120 know until that baby came out and the name i'm not even lexi still thinks i'm joking probably

00:34:25.060 but it was going to be godfrey i mean honestly he was going to have two names both of great

00:34:31.120 christian leaders one of them in early uh you know king in britney named mariadoc oh dude what a

00:34:41.080 great mariadoc godfrey godfrey first oh yeah yeah yeah or um the other one i like is oh um what's

00:34:50.000 what's the name clovis clovis was a great great christian you know what is a good name too is

00:34:55.640 eric because eric the red was he a christian um yes did he do a lot of killing he was more of

00:35:04.600 dan's people so utter pagan he was more just like worshiped trees and stuff and sacrifice people i

00:35:11.980 mean when you put it like that it sounds bad yeah i mean but but he had a riz yeah

00:35:17.540 he was a he was a murderer yeah but like super cool too yeah no no no none of that got the real

00:35:28.440 godfrey though the real godfrey uh yeah just talk about it you know as men particularly i remember

00:35:34.100 hearing this years ago from somebody who worked in christian publishing and they said that if you

00:35:38.900 go to a bookstore which do you remember those but it was like a place where you went and they had

00:35:43.500 like physical books i used to flirt with lexi a lot at barnes and noble like i would take her 0.75

00:35:48.780 there there was a little starbucks in there yeah you remember that get a little yeah i'd get her 0.82

00:35:52.380 a little chai tea latte whatever the ladies like yeah we'd uh play scrabble i you know i'd make

00:35:58.320 eyes at her it was a lot it was a lot of fun yeah interesting um what does that have to do with

00:36:08.460 anything. Well, you said, have I ever seen a bookstore and I got distracted. So the point of

00:36:14.140 this, go ahead, carry on. The point of what the Christian publisher was saying is that

00:36:21.780 most of the bookstore is for women. Right. For men, the only section that they visit is like

00:36:29.100 history, war. Yeah. And maybe some biography. Yeah. So there's something about the masculine

00:36:34.260 an appeal i think of somebody like godfrey um we love feats of strength he is kind of interesting

00:36:40.200 because he's got the he's got the swift feet of oj simpson but he's not a murderer in that way

00:36:48.800 i don't know this episode is out of control we're wildin this episode's out of control

00:36:54.740 but he he he's got the prowess but he's also the super godly guy yeah he's like so pious and so

00:37:02.100 meek and so godly and he did not kill his wife in a waiter okay yeah and you compare him to oj

00:37:09.540 simpson i'm just thinking you have the audacity to take one of our heroes and and besmirch his

00:37:17.120 name i'm so sorry oh my word too much coffee unbelievable not enough coffee but i mean what

00:37:23.620 a king god what a king no he he genuinely was it's it's a rare combination you actually see a

00:37:29.180 lot of, um, even in the medieval chronicles and in the history of the crusades, there were a lot

00:37:35.560 of men who kind of had one or a few really exemplary characteristics or they were great

00:37:41.400 warriors, but Godfrey, I'm, I'm, I'm having a hard time thinking of a man who was more well-rounded

00:37:48.080 in his overall character and competence. Yeah. There's a couple of guys who kind of

00:37:53.820 stood atop the list. I think Godfrey's up there. Um, I think Richard, the Lionheart,

00:37:58.420 Richard the Lionheart is definitely in that short list.

00:38:01.280 He comes later.

00:38:02.380 But yeah, just in terms of the overall picture of the man.

00:38:05.840 Very few.

00:38:06.460 That you would want to exemplify.

00:38:08.160 So I want to ask you just a little bit about this with C.S. Lewis and the chivalric ideal.

00:38:14.660 And we'll get into some of this.

00:38:16.160 There are some problems with chivalry, but this ideal of being a savage gentleman.

00:38:22.420 A lot of people have picked this up.

00:38:23.960 you know, John Lovell, a warrior poet, stealing that sort of phrase from William Wallace and

00:38:29.760 Braveheart. But I think it's a good one. Why is it important that as men, we keep, and in a way,

00:38:36.700 like Lewis says, it's not even really a balance. Like they have to be each thing to the nth degree.

00:38:40.740 Yeah. But why is that important? I think it's important because it's bowing the knee to God's

00:38:47.540 most creational design for men. God made men to have this kind of range. And I really appreciate

00:38:54.540 Lewis putting it that way, that it's not about balance. So often we think about character,

00:39:00.820 virtue, life in terms of balance. Like I just want to stay in balance between all these different

00:39:04.320 things. But a lot of the time, what people take that to mean is like some kind of just

00:39:08.100 milquetoast, lukewarm splitting of the difference where I'm not going to be that dangerous. I'm not

00:39:15.020 going to be because i don't want to i want to be balanced so i don't want to be like all out

00:39:18.900 you know become really skilled in this thing or war or strong or but for the the ideal man

00:39:26.760 it's developing the different constituent parts of what it means to be a man each to

00:39:34.600 proportional to your vocation and duty to their highest so for godfrey as a knight that was his

00:39:42.160 vocation, he pursued martial excellence to the nth degree. And as a knight and a ruler and a lord,

00:39:51.900 he was expected to have a certain amount of courtliness and manner. And he was expected

00:39:56.480 to set an example for his men of piety and Christian virtue. And so Godfrey, he was just

00:40:04.180 a perfect example of this, pursuing all of the different aspects of his vocation in God's

00:40:09.540 providence in his life with absolute zeal and single month. So, and you get the impression

00:40:15.360 that when he was learning martial skills, that was all he did. He was relentless. And that was

00:40:22.060 his whole mind and heart and body was set on doing that. And when he was thinking of his piety and

00:40:26.980 his worship of the Lord, he, his whole mind and his whole soul was, was bent on doing that thing

00:40:32.680 excellently um he he reminds me of what you hear of a lot of you know like great men in the

00:40:39.780 criticisms that his knights gave of him like he'd be so single-minded in his focus he'd like forget

00:40:45.560 about lunch forget about everything else and he was just like no i want to know about this doctrinal

00:40:51.300 thing and i'm here at the i'm here worshiping with the saints so i want to know about that

00:40:55.620 that's what i'm focused on um great men have often been like that able to just single-mindedly focus

00:41:00.480 on one specific thing. But so much of our day is marked by a diminishing or even a lopping off

00:41:09.040 altogether of whole aspects of what it means to be a man and kind of removing them from the list

00:41:15.860 of masculine virtues like martial skill and strength and these things. Yeah, it's interesting

00:41:20.800 because I think if you were to survey, let's say like Christian leaders today, would you have

00:41:28.120 intellectuals who are also useful in battle for example probably not yeah um even i mean i always

00:41:38.700 go back to something like the immigration issue like our leaders can't even develop a stomach to

00:41:43.640 even talk about you know being for your people in place and that necessarily means excluding

00:41:49.100 foreigners and foreign invasions of the third world they don't even have a mental fortitude

00:41:54.000 let alone a fortitude of body yeah they can't they're not going to take action no because they

00:41:58.980 can't even talk about it because it's you know they're afraid i was watching a thing yesterday

00:42:03.820 on x it was uh malcolm gladwell who has written a couple famous books um but it's interesting

00:42:12.820 because he was saying they were talking about uh transgenderism and he was on this panel

00:42:16.680 and on the panel he said yeah i'm like totally in favor of it transgenderism is like really good

00:42:22.580 and then in a follow-up podcast he was like oh yeah i was just being a total coward i was being

00:42:29.920 cowed i don't believe any of those things i just felt like you know in that environment like i just

00:42:36.360 i just didn't feel like i could even say what i really thought and so like that's the class of

00:42:41.060 our intellectual right so on the one hand you have tame men who are you know worthless in their own

00:42:47.000 right yeah but then i think one other thing that i've noticed is a lot of the younger men

00:42:53.480 in the you know think about like the red pill pickup artistry you know you've interfaced with

00:42:58.840 some of these guys you go to like the andrew tate extreme where you're like i think that godfrey

00:43:03.760 would have looked at a guy like andrew tate and been utterly disgusted oh yeah he wouldn't have

00:43:09.440 he would not have thought much of him at all because a man has to understand probably would

00:43:15.460 thought he was a Turk. No, he probably would have killed, he probably would have, he probably would

00:43:20.180 have from one side of the, you know what I'm saying? So we have to understand, I think, I think

00:43:25.820 this is what God for exemplified is that for men, mastery of the self, it involves different layers

00:43:34.100 and spheres and parts of the person. And mastery of the body is actually one of the lower rungs

00:43:41.260 of piety like mastering the body even a guy like Andrew Tate can master in terms of developing

00:43:48.500 strength and martial skill and like any man because that's a part of his physical bodily

00:43:55.420 nature and it's important and it's important even an animal can do that even an animal can be strong

00:44:02.220 and can develop its muscles and can develop its ability to go out and you know fight for its

00:44:08.320 survival and, you know, hunt down prey and all this sorts, like even an animal can do that.

00:44:12.800 So it's not that a man is less than that. A man is an embodied soul. He's an embodied creature.

00:44:17.760 His body matters. Physical strength matters. God made the male body strong and with a tendency

00:44:24.500 and an inclination towards strength for a reason. However, Andrew Tate is a good example of a man

00:44:30.640 who mastered just the baser parts of his body

00:44:34.380 and not even his sexual self.

00:44:38.000 He didn't master his sexual drive.

00:44:39.720 He didn't master the baser instincts of man.

00:44:42.560 He is not elevated to the level of becoming a man,

00:44:46.660 a true, well-rounded man.

00:44:49.300 What Godfrey embodies is the man who masters

00:44:54.120 from the ground up.

00:44:55.340 He masters his physical body.

00:44:57.440 He masters his desires and the lusts of the body, we could call them, the desires of the body, to where he was able to fast and say, we're going to fast and abstain from food, like sexual chastity, these kinds of virtues, all the way on up to the one who masters his own soul and masters the mind.

00:45:16.780 and does these things that the animals cannot do,

00:45:19.540 lead and think and ponder and enjoy

00:45:22.980 and meditate on the Lord

00:45:24.680 and actually be in communion with God himself.

00:45:28.460 Like these are, a man can't neglect

00:45:31.240 any of the rungs of the ladder going up in mastery,

00:45:35.300 but so many master the first two rungs

00:45:37.860 of just the physical body, oh, I'm strong.

00:45:41.020 It's like, Godfrey wouldn't have thought much of that.

00:45:43.800 Oh, that's the easy part.

00:45:45.640 Yeah, and then there's another category I think of, you know, we think of the pastors.

00:45:50.340 We tend to interface with them, but maybe like older men with a BMI of 170.

00:45:56.760 Is that even possible?

00:45:58.660 I made it up.

00:46:00.040 I just made it up.

00:46:01.480 But it is interesting because like then you'll say like men should be, to use Lewis's categories, meek in the hall, but useful on a battlefield.

00:46:10.420 When you do start talking about martial prowess and physical strength, then in come the fat pastors to say, oh, what a waste that is.

00:46:21.040 Look at my bloated figure.

00:46:23.600 I'm the true picture of masculinity actually because I know Latin.

00:46:29.000 And so you just think about how we're trying to train our young men.

00:46:32.300 And really, thinking of those two categories from Lewis is really helpful, where our sons are learning Latin and Greek.

00:46:41.760 They are learning to be conversant in Dante and Plutarch's lives and Libby.

00:46:48.000 They know Cicero.

00:46:50.580 They know Aristotle.

00:46:53.040 And they're learning armed combatives and boxing and how to shoot a gun.

00:46:59.400 There's all sorts of categories at work.

00:47:02.060 and we're just saying, yeah, men need to have range.

00:47:04.680 Right.

00:47:05.380 And it's really interesting because I would also say,

00:47:08.640 like on the physical side,

00:47:10.320 as you're training men for physical strength,

00:47:12.340 you take that guy and then you also want him 0.97

00:47:16.400 to know how to behave in the company of ladies.

00:47:19.120 He's not talking like he does among the boys.

00:47:22.700 He's not making the same kind of jokes.

00:47:24.580 He's being cordial and gentlemanly.

00:47:26.500 He's asking good questions.

00:47:28.160 He's being thoughtful of the people in his presence.

00:47:30.480 yeah um even like you can watch this with our elders like we're one way with each other

00:47:36.540 you know on the golf course at the shooting range whatever if it's just men but when the ladies are

00:47:43.320 there there is a decorum and a respectfulness and uh you know you you know how to handle children

00:47:50.400 and toddlers and infants and there's this whole range to it so i guess just speak to the training

00:47:56.340 aspect for men that if this sort of godfrey type person is somewhat of an ideal yeah how do you

00:48:02.640 actually get there yeah i think it's funny we were just talking about this on bright hearth

00:48:07.680 we're doing a series right now on bright hearth called on being human four different categories

00:48:11.940 of life bright hearth is a is this a podcast you do it's a it's a podcast yeah yeah it's a podcast

00:48:18.340 it's a podcast i do it i do it with me lady and uh we talk about stuff and it's it's good but

00:48:24.580 We've been talking about this, like just different aspects of what it means to be a person, the physical, the soul, the social, all these different aspects.

00:48:30.780 And I think it's helpful for a person thinking of himself or in training other men or being a parent of children or whatever, whatever role you have.

00:48:41.340 You rule first over your own spirit and then you have rule in many other areas is to just think about what are the basic things that would serve that like are foundational to being human?

00:48:52.960 and how can I cultivate those

00:48:55.140 to some kind of baseline of competency and virtue?

00:48:59.420 And I'm thinking there about things like,

00:49:01.500 okay, everybody is called to worship the living God,

00:49:04.280 to be a Christian.

00:49:05.000 So what does that mean?

00:49:05.760 Well, there's spiritual disciplines

00:49:06.960 that are involved in that.

00:49:08.620 Prayer, giving, worshiping the Lord on the Lord's day.

00:49:12.200 We have spiritual disciplines

00:49:13.800 that every Christian should pursue.

00:49:15.900 And then thinking of, well, I have duties in the body,

00:49:19.740 whether I'm a man or a woman,

00:49:21.320 that would be served well by having a kind of physical strength and endurance and longevity.

00:49:28.140 And so there's a kind of mastery of my body and my appetites, the food that I eat, the activity

00:49:33.560 that I participate in, I need to train my body. And then beyond that, so there's this baseline

00:49:38.620 everybody ought to pursue. Then what I find really helpful is to map out the different vocations that

00:49:45.240 I have or another person I'm talking to has. I just did this with my 12 year old, my wife and

00:49:49.740 I just did this with our 12 year old son. What are your vocations? So for him, then he starts

00:49:54.160 to add in particular vocations that are unique to his stage of life and providence. He's a student.

00:49:59.160 So he has duties as a student. For me, I'm a father. I have duties as a father and a husband.

00:50:05.400 I'm a pastor. I'm a president of New Christendom Press. I, you know, I had all these different

00:50:11.140 vocations that I have. And then I just back up and ask the question, what would the ideal man

00:50:17.480 look like as a president of New Christian Oppressed? What would the ideal man look like

00:50:22.060 as a pastor? What would the ideal man look like? And then there's this exercise of measuring the

00:50:27.380 gap between me and the ideal man. And in many areas you find it's vast. It's huge. You go like,

00:50:31.940 oh, I'm actually, you start to see clearly the path of discipline and hard work and virtue that

00:50:38.240 is between you and mastery. And you realize you're going to die before you reach total mastery of

00:50:44.820 these things. But life ought to be a series of journeys down the road to mastery in the vocations

00:50:50.680 that God has given me, which are different from my brother over here and my sister over there.

00:50:56.720 My wife needs to have different mastery than I do as a husband and her as a wife and a mother,

00:51:02.800 me as a father. So when I'm thinking about developing myself or developing other men or

00:51:07.360 in the school or the church or whatever it is, I'm trying to get that granular in particular,

00:51:13.000 because that's where we actually find the practical steps

00:51:16.260 of like what I need to do,

00:51:19.060 which is maybe different from what Joe down the street

00:51:21.180 needs to do, maybe a lot of overlap.

00:51:24.100 But too often what we do

00:51:25.860 is we just sort of think generically and generally

00:51:29.020 and never specifically enough.

00:51:31.480 So for Godfrey, think of it.

00:51:33.000 He was like, I'm a knight.

00:51:34.960 His parents chose that vocation for him.

00:51:36.860 In God's providence,

00:51:37.600 it was quite a fitting vocation for his nature.

00:51:40.280 So what did he do?

00:51:41.040 well a knight needs to be able to ride and wield a sword and archery and he needs to be able to

00:51:45.640 take care of his equipment and he needs to be able to lead men he needs to be able to master

00:51:50.460 his estate like he had an estate to mortgage to fund an entire flippant army to go on this crusade

00:51:57.220 think of the work through generations that had gone into his family in governing those estates

00:52:03.240 and making them fruitful and taking care of those uh you know leaseholders or i can't remember

00:52:08.580 exactly how their system of agriculture worked, but there's like feudal system, they're peasants

00:52:14.660 essentially on his land that work the land. They give a portion to the landowner as income, and

00:52:19.100 he has to manage this estate. So you think of all these different things Godfrey had to do.

00:52:24.160 And he clearly started, you know, below the age of 10 and pursuing these things. And his whole

00:52:31.060 life was just a walking down that road of mastery and his vocation, mastering himself, his virtue,

00:52:36.620 his competency at all of these different levels and so often i see men women too who are just

00:52:44.500 they're floating through life in this lackadaisical way they're not thinking about their vocations

00:52:49.520 they're not thinking about how to improve they're not thinking about how to get better at all the

00:52:53.420 things in front of them they're thinking more along the lines of how can i coast the most and

00:52:57.720 put the least amount into this thing and get the most comfort pleasure money whatever out of it

00:53:02.620 And it's like, you don't get Godfrey's of Wion.

00:53:07.020 That's why no one will remember your name.

00:53:08.900 Exactly. 0.89

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00:56:16.020 yeah i think a huge part of this too so many tracks it could go down uh but one of them i was

00:56:23.380 thinking of like hebrews 11 and then you know this list of heroes but then also how each hero

00:56:30.520 is different there's some martyrs there's guys who conquered in war yeah this is knowing your

00:56:34.600 vocation and what you're for um but the number of times paul will also say remember your leaders

00:56:40.260 consider the outcome of their faith and the outcome of their lives and then to the extent

00:56:44.320 that it's good imitate them yeah this just works i mean plato saw this in the republic

00:56:51.040 that young men especially they like they need these stories yes they need these stories because

00:56:58.440 the stories shape their souls and i think this is why we've talked about in the show before this is

00:57:03.900 why the left wants to kill your stories and your fathers the stories of your fathers because they

00:57:08.560 know how powerful those stories are yes but i think in our time and place especially we're not

00:57:13.640 really surrounded by great men we're surrounded by pragmatists and cheats and grifters yeah and

00:57:19.160 there's a lot of infighting even but but you just look at all that and then you read about Godfrey

00:57:24.000 and you go those are the people that surround us are not great men no mostly in our culture

00:57:29.120 but somebody like Godfrey you think about the level of sacrifice yeah like to your point was

00:57:34.780 he saying what's going to be the easiest most comfortable thing for me no he's like how do I

00:57:39.820 leverage everything to the hilt. Yeah. So that I can go on this crusade, which they all knew was

00:57:44.400 probably going to kill them. Oh yeah. How can we do something for Christendom and for our

00:57:48.760 generations? They actually viewed this as a great opportunity. You even see this in, you know,

00:57:53.720 they're, they're all starving and they're on the road and they say, we got to stop. We got to go

00:57:57.440 find food. And Godfrey comes upon basically a peasant being attacked by a bear. And what does

00:58:03.980 Godfrey do? He doesn't think to himself, well, that he's way more disposable than me. I'm flipping

00:58:10.640 Godfrey of Bouillon. I'm the Lord of this army. Like I'm the leader. If I die to this bear,

00:58:16.880 everything's lost. He didn't think about it. He pulls his sword and he rushes a bear with a sword

00:58:22.980 and he attacks a bear on horseback. His horse dies. He gets pinned under his horse. He's trying

00:58:30.120 of flat you know cuts his own hamstring by accident and still doesn't give up rams the

00:58:36.040 sword through the the bear is losing consciousness from massive blood loss has the awareness to pull

00:58:42.840 the horn out blow the horn get the help and and then not only that but he has the absolute

00:58:48.240 unmitigated gall to say keep going to the city we're going to be sieged just carry me so they

00:58:53.740 carry in there he gets better five minutes after they show up a huge tens of thousands army of

00:58:58.920 Muslims are coming to attack him. He's like, let's flip and go. Bring me my horse. This is

00:59:02.660 the kind of man that Godfrey was. Think about this. Godfrey had the opportunity to sit in luxury

00:59:07.620 on his estate, pampered by servants with vast and, you know, the wealth that none of us will

00:59:13.020 ever experience. And he mortgaged all of it to go. And you can, you can say what you want about

00:59:19.200 the crusades. His motivation was he wanted to please Christ. He wanted to please God. And so

00:59:23.880 we have generations at this point of men who are growing up young children and we're giving them

00:59:29.000 the most worthless possible heroes while robbing them of these great heroes men like this and then

00:59:35.720 we expect them to grow up and have any kind of backbone to be able to do anything great for the

00:59:40.460 kingdom of god and for the good of their people it's like you have to reclaim these heroes and

00:59:44.880 say these belong to us yeah your kids need to not watch k-pop demon hunters and they need to read

00:59:51.680 about godfrey i'll just say that right now but i i do i think it's so brian is like i just can't

00:59:59.620 anymore we i'm tired i'm tired we've got to stop putting like lowering our standards to the point

01:00:07.900 where just the minimum threshold of faggotry is inspiring us you know what i'm saying where we're

01:00:14.160 like oh there was a lot of faggotry in here but like it was a good story underneath and that could

01:00:21.080 really, and really there's these Christian themes. And I'm like, uh, the God, the gospel

01:00:25.500 coalition called, they want their article format back. First of all, it's like, we have better

01:00:31.380 stuff to be inspired by than anime, whatever it is, bikini clad. I don't even know enough to make

01:00:39.940 fun of it, which to be honest, I'm actually kind of proud of. I don't even know enough to make fun

01:00:44.460 of it. I'm just going to say general anime faggotry. Well, it was interesting because I was

01:00:49.840 watching uh last night novak jokovic defeated taylor fritz in the u.s open i think it was

01:00:55.540 quarterfinals or something and uh he gets done he does this little dance and they're like

01:01:00.820 i love novak he's like eastern orthodox i think but kind of based you know from serbia

01:01:08.200 you know but then he does this little dance and he's like yeah i do this dance it's uh my daughter

01:01:14.260 likes it is from k-pop demon hunter and i was like no back please no you jan sobieski is upset with

01:01:24.420 you right he's watching from the great cloud of witnesses do you think jan sobieski would have

01:01:28.460 danced to k-pop anime weirdness you gotta stop it you just gotta stop so i do think that this

01:01:35.260 really matters like stories uh they shape us but they're important which ones we tell ourselves i

01:01:40.660 I didn't even know who Godfrey of Weon was until my 20s.

01:01:44.580 Yeah.

01:01:45.180 And so this is the legacy of the West.

01:01:48.240 These are the stories that belong to us.

01:01:51.660 America as a shining beacon of what the West is able to accomplish and its heritage.

01:01:58.020 And we don't even tell this story.

01:02:00.420 And if we do, we tell it as a story of wicked Christians attacking those peace-loving Muslims while they're just trying to invent calculus.

01:02:10.660 Well, it is interesting because the other day I was talking to Seth Gruber, who does a lot of pro-life work, and they were working on documentaries, and he said something really interesting to me.

01:02:23.040 And I want to get your take because he's a really bold guy doing a lot of good work and doing a lot of work with George Grant on these documentaries.

01:02:32.460 So if you're doing work with George Grant, chances of it being good are very high.

01:02:37.280 I like George Grant a lot.

01:02:38.060 But I love what Seth said.

01:02:39.720 He said, Eric, Western civilization is on the brink of destruction.

01:02:44.780 We need men to make a last stand, like fight for your culture.

01:02:49.560 He's like, stop fighting with each other.

01:02:52.380 We have people who want to cut the genitalia off our children.

01:02:56.100 And he said, the thing is, it's encouraging in one way because people are waking up, some people.

01:03:03.500 But he said a lot of people aren't.

01:03:05.360 And like, you're, you're not even aware that we're exhibiting, for example, like every single one of Edward Gibbons fall, fall the Roman empire.

01:03:13.820 Like we're, we're exhibiting all the signs.

01:03:16.640 And so can you get people to actually wake up?

01:03:19.160 So do you, do you read that cultural moment that way?

01:03:23.000 And, uh, you know, in terms of Western civilizations in a very precarious spot.

01:03:27.580 yeah we're so accustomed to it that i mean we're at the point where i saw someone say the most

01:03:35.460 audacious thing this week they claimed like the we've defeated the left the danger from the left

01:03:41.880 they were it was some woke right thing they're like oh we've defeated the woke left now you know

01:03:47.020 they're done it's over there's no more danger from over there we and now we've got this woke right

01:03:51.300 we've got a defeat it just it made me think of like if you could imagine a guy in the middle of

01:03:56.100 one of these battles with the Muslims and the Christians and him saying like, we've defeated

01:03:59.960 the Muslims over here, but these other people seem to be using swords too. And so I think maybe

01:04:06.540 we need to turn and defeat them as well. It's like only you, you, you have to be so blind to

01:04:13.180 our cultural moment to think that in any way we are close to victory in the West right now.

01:04:19.900 Yeah. And I actually think it goes, I don't think it's blindness for a lot of people.

01:04:23.360 I think these are actually

01:04:25.960 status plays

01:04:28.380 like I think it's

01:04:29.820 whether you want to call it controlled opposition

01:04:31.860 but we know for a fact

01:04:33.960 that the deep state

01:04:35.940 apparatus sends

01:04:37.780 propagandists and people

01:04:39.320 like the whole woke right thing

01:04:41.680 like to make it seem like anybody

01:04:43.840 on the right basically Charles Haywood was

01:04:45.900 right he said the best

01:04:47.900 term for the woke right is actually just the effective

01:04:49.940 right people who actually want

01:04:52.000 to see the liberal order change and be something that's actually christian but i think yeah for

01:04:59.080 the the guys leading the charge on the whole woke right thing which in what's sad is um

01:05:04.500 as you look at the guys doing it okay that's one thing leading that but then there's people

01:05:11.280 who buy into it which is like all of the neocon establishment you're like well this guy i i don't

01:05:18.120 know what he does but he plays with swords are you talking about james lindsey who james the um

01:05:24.240 i think who is that i think he is a guy i think he invented dungeons and dragons yeah that guy

01:05:30.920 he's got some kind of claim to fame somewhere he's famous for that and i think calling people

01:05:36.860 woke right yes those kind of but then you have like all the big wigs of the conservative movement

01:05:42.880 A lot of them are doing good work, but I think that is a way that it's being controlled.

01:05:48.840 One thing that's interesting to me is that if you boil down, like, what are the largest objections or things that will get you labeled as woke right?

01:05:56.780 Someone made this infographic of people James Lindsay's called woke right, and I'm on it.

01:06:01.640 And I don't know if you – anyway, and it had all the footnotes.

01:06:05.400 I'm not on it.

01:06:06.300 You're not on it?

01:06:07.320 Well, so this is funny, though, because it was Milo Yiannopoulos who was sharing it.

01:06:12.360 and like you're actually interacting with him yeah he follows me i don't know he we but here's

01:06:17.740 the thing i i don't know a ton about him he needs to clean up his act colored past i don't know if

01:06:23.300 he's he needs to repent and trust in the lord jesus christ and stop doing a lot of stuff but

01:06:26.700 i've seen this one thing he does that i like which is he doesn't like the woke right stuff no he's

01:06:32.380 he's calls it out the here's the thing at the center of it like all this the point of the joke

01:06:36.680 of the of the infographic was if you were just to look at all the people james lindsey has called

01:06:42.020 woke right it's everybody it's like people who are on completely different sides of all all sorts

01:06:47.340 of different spectrum it's like paleo conservatives it's like natcon people christian nationalists

01:06:52.480 just maga conservatives kind of like not even conservatives some anons over here it's like

01:06:58.340 this huge diverse group that have very little ideological alignment in a lot of things and i

01:07:03.780 was trying i was thinking about it like what is it that people are that will get you what what

01:07:08.760 activity will get you labeled as woke, right? And here's what I've concluded, your thoughts.

01:07:13.640 It is anybody that will say that central to the destructive mechanism of the West right now,

01:07:21.740 central to the mechanism that evil people are using to attempt to destroy the West,

01:07:25.920 and I would argue the Christian West, is breaking their will to self-preservation at all.

01:07:31.620 It's telling it's anybody who stands up and says, particularly white, Anglo, European, American, Western peoples, historically Christian peoples, you must hate yourselves and you must actively seek your own destruction and replacement.

01:07:51.060 It's anybody who will stand up and say,

01:07:52.800 that's central to the message in play

01:07:54.560 they're trying to run on us

01:07:55.480 is actually to get us to join in to our own destruction.

01:07:59.320 And if you stand up and say,

01:08:00.640 no, you actually have to fight for your own people

01:08:04.120 and your own cultural heritage

01:08:06.840 and your own existence as a people.

01:08:10.900 Anything like that will immediately get you

01:08:12.840 labeled as woke right.

01:08:14.300 And what they'll do is they'll say,

01:08:16.520 oh, they'll all of a sudden say

01:08:18.600 that you are just a racially obsessed Nazi apologist, et cetera, et cetera. You're all

01:08:24.640 of these things. And it's like, I heard you were kind of like Joseph Goebbels. I was, I was compared

01:08:29.600 in a, one of the craziest AI generated screens I've ever seen on Twitter of being basically

01:08:36.420 Joseph Goebbels. And, and I, it was, I just chuckled about it, but I'm trying to think of

01:08:41.740 like, what are the things that would make somebody think that I'm basically Joseph Goebbels? And

01:08:46.320 it's because you're good at media that's that was basically i was like um you know think of

01:08:54.200 think of the uh the unprotected class the book yeah right and the the message of that book and

01:09:00.800 it's just a very it's a very small example in a way of this uh clear demonstration of the thesis

01:09:09.240 that particularly white Western Americans and Christians

01:09:13.220 have been taught to despise themselves,

01:09:17.120 actively oppose their own interests

01:09:18.900 and embrace honestly suicidal policies

01:09:22.740 when it comes to things like immigration, race,

01:09:26.140 all of these different things.

01:09:27.780 They're so clear.

01:09:29.940 They're so easily evidenced

01:09:31.500 that this is what has been happening for a century,

01:09:34.160 especially since Hartzeller,

01:09:35.940 but before that for a century and beyond.

01:09:38.080 it's so obvious that this has been happening that the more people start realizing this and

01:09:45.600 waking up to this the more shrill you're going to find the opposition and the more desperate the

01:09:50.100 opposition who has been who has a vested interest in continuing these narratives they're going to

01:09:55.280 oppose you with more and more vitriol more and more lies more and more smears more and more

01:10:00.900 propaganda that's what we're seeing yeah i think it's somewhere near the heart of the issue

01:10:06.400 uh for me uh this is the other day uh joel pastor joel our friend joel was on elijah shaffer

01:10:15.400 and elijah asked him like why do all these pastors hate you like you know right wing watch

01:10:20.720 pastors like people are actively week by week trying to destroy you what is it and i think

01:10:27.540 joel kind of nailed it this whole egalitarian liberal order post-war project is its own religion

01:10:34.120 but what the people who hold to it want you to believe that that equals christianity they want

01:10:41.700 you to think that all this post-war consensus garbage is literally the historic christian

01:10:48.680 faith right so but the problem is if you quote any christian before like 1920 they too would

01:10:56.780 be called woke right because nobody believed what now the majority of like neocon christian

01:11:03.180 post-liberal order people believe yeah and so i think just understanding that it's a religion

01:11:07.920 um that when people when when you say things that violate that religion you will be treated

01:11:13.120 like a heretic right they will try to burn you at the stake they will i got in trouble for this

01:11:19.160 this week they will they will partner themselves with gossips and slanders to try to destroy you

01:11:25.580 you guys have no like people general onlookers tend to have very little idea of what it's like

01:11:32.780 to have any kind of public platform and not tooting our own horn, like niche internet micro

01:11:40.020 celebrity, kind of like that's, that's what's anything at all related to us as, and we jokingly

01:11:46.280 say that. Sure. 70,000 followers on Twitter. It's, it's not a big deal at the end of the day.

01:11:50.820 However, it does open you up to certain things and experiences that not everybody has. And one

01:11:55.520 of them is like, if people were aware of how serpentine and snake-like and vicious the attempts

01:12:03.260 are to not just oppose ideas that we have, but to through gossip, slander, wholesale invention

01:12:10.260 of lies to destroy us, it would shock people. And I mean, the names that come to mind, I'm not

01:12:18.520 gonna give them any press, the names that come to mind that you all are thinking like, is he

01:12:23.160 talking about them? Yes. I'm talking about them. Yeah. Like people that have attempted to literally

01:12:29.780 in my case, accused me of the grossest criminal misconduct even in that is completely untrue.

01:12:40.660 Like that's a normal experience for us from these people. So when they see us say these people are

01:12:47.280 absolute snakes and degenerates, and you shouldn't even give them the time of day, they, they should

01:12:52.120 fear the wrath of God because they are hell bound if they don't repent. That's what we're talking

01:12:57.360 about here. It's not just like, oh, we're just doing some investigative journalism. No, it is

01:13:02.500 demonic. It's evil. It's sinful. It sucks people in. And what it does is ultimately it distracts

01:13:09.160 them. It creates massive infighting and division within the Christian West and ameliorates a lot

01:13:16.280 of our attempts to fight against the enemy of like the literal mortal enemy of our civilization

01:13:22.820 mortal enemies of our civilization and they're like of course you would expect for the enemy

01:13:29.240 to try to foment infighting and destruction and all sorts of distraction in that kind of war

01:13:34.940 like we that's what we experience every day yeah and and i think a big part of it reading the

01:13:40.220 history is you know godfrey you know that moment when he is nicaea or antioch can't remember antioch

01:13:47.480 he leaves and everybody's fighting about who's in charge and he's like you people i'm going like

01:13:53.000 i'm out like this isn't what we're supposed to do like we have a mission you got to keep your

01:13:57.180 eyes on the mission so i think part of the challenge too is we've we've tried to not really

01:14:02.520 get sucked into a lot of that there's good work to do um again i've talked to a lot of guys who

01:14:09.080 our, like, why is there so much infighting? What a waste of time. Like if our, as we've said,

01:14:15.780 you know, like we're not going to be a discernment ministry. No. Someone made like another one of

01:14:21.380 these crazy unhinged threads claiming that my wife is like some kind of Hitler-esque. 0.87

01:14:26.380 Oh no. Like it was insane stuff. It's like Eva Braun or. I was like, my wife, my wife,

01:14:33.500 99% of her focus is like raising our seven children and just being a Christian woman in our church.

01:14:38.460 and then we carve out like this tiny amount of our time to just try to be of help to christians

01:14:43.820 in the spaces of productive christian household like being a godly homemaker in these things

01:14:47.920 and if you listen to the things that we put out the things my wife writes about in her book the

01:14:52.660 things that we talk about on bright hearth and all this stuff it's like the most normal christian

01:14:59.900 piety, Christian living kind of stuff. And somehow, someone from that drew a line and

01:15:08.480 connected the dots between that body of evidence and literal insanity to come up with this 1.00

01:15:13.460 slanderous gobbledygook over here about how she's like a Hitlerist. But the crazy thing is posts 1.00

01:15:19.600 like that, you see them and they're like, oh, 10,000 people saw that. 300 people liked it.

01:15:24.460 18 people shared it and a lot of these people just uncritically receive this with as as god's

01:15:31.880 honest truth you're like what it actually is is completely unhinged insanity that makes that has

01:15:38.680 absolutely no connection to reality whatsoever yeah all it's trying to do is undermine if you

01:15:43.480 look at the thing it's trying to undermine it's a work of a christian woman trying to do titus 0.95

01:15:47.740 two stuff and say like hey let me help younger women to be godly and love their husbands and

01:15:52.920 raise their children well like who would want to oppose that i know satan whose team are you on

01:16:01.280 let's do the math quote you from satan to quote you from sunday's sermon god have mercy on your

01:16:07.260 soul yeah i mean if this is you may god have mercy on your soul yes and and i think too um it's just

01:16:17.200 a good refocusing for all of us is you're thinking about what kind of man you want to be you're

01:16:20.900 looking at examples like godfrey um to know that you're always going to have haters especially if

01:16:26.880 you're effective um we it's funny to me because a lot of the people who attack us regularly like

01:16:32.580 i'm gonna ask all the time like what do you think about this person who's like you know what they're

01:16:37.500 doing their work they see fit to it i'm not really gonna i've got make it my life to got stuff even

01:16:46.120 think about them. Yeah. So we, we have work to do. You said something that I, maybe it's kind of a

01:16:51.580 good thing as we wrap up, but something that you said at the end of the sermon this week, um, was

01:16:57.560 really good. You were talking about Nehemiah and you were talking about the critics and what do

01:17:02.380 the Christian people, what's your response when you have, I mean, there are certain podcasts and

01:17:09.740 you would know them and I'm not, like you said, I'm not giving them press, but where it's like

01:17:13.800 every other week anything and everything i say gets taken out of context put on there and then

01:17:20.220 like basically i get dragged and i just kind of laugh and think what a waste of time that this

01:17:26.460 is even happening but nehemiah is a good example of not getting distracted by that you sort of say

01:17:33.740 and i want to ask you to go through your spiel but we're doing good work i don't have time for

01:17:38.560 this. I cannot come down to deal with your nonsense. Yeah, this is what Godfrey did.

01:17:44.860 And this is what Christians need to recover. It's the spirit of Nehemiah and the people in

01:17:49.420 Nehemiah's day who they looked at the wall. They looked at the crumbling defenses around the city.

01:17:55.580 They looked at the vast and seemingly impossible work of rebuilding it. They looked at all of the

01:18:01.540 enemies who were telling them, not only you can't do this, but if you try, we'll kill you.

01:18:07.080 They listened to all of the mockery and taunting.

01:18:10.300 They looked at all the corruption and sin within the people.

01:18:13.400 They looked at all of those things.

01:18:15.400 And then they just looked to God and they said, but God told us to do it.

01:18:19.780 And so they said, I'm sorry, the work is too great.

01:18:22.000 We cannot come down.

01:18:22.980 And then they went and got to work.

01:18:24.340 And that's the kind of spirit where, yes, sometimes Nehemiah had to go and pull someone's

01:18:28.420 hair and beat him up a little bit.

01:18:30.180 And sometimes they had to go and deal with these enemies and occasionally send an envoy

01:18:35.020 or a leader has to go deal with them.

01:18:36.300 But for the most part, the spirit that we're trying to cultivate in our people is that spirit.

01:18:40.880 Just like, oh, Sanballat thinks we can't do it.

01:18:44.480 Okay, anyway, God says we're to try.

01:18:47.460 Pure God, not man.

01:18:48.500 And maybe we won't.

01:18:49.780 Maybe we'll fail.

01:18:51.180 But at least we'll have failed attempting something worthwhile that we believe God put in front of us to do.

01:18:56.020 Yeah, maybe in God's providence, this is a part of the story where it gets really dark.

01:19:01.920 And the light goes out on Christian America altogether.

01:19:04.960 and Western civilization falls.

01:19:08.100 And then out of the big compost heap

01:19:10.720 of all of that death and destruction and decay,

01:19:13.400 something else rises up and the Lord is kind again

01:19:16.400 and turns his face back again.

01:19:17.940 Maybe this is a time for chastisement for the West

01:19:20.200 where we reap what we've sown and it's the whirlwind.

01:19:25.540 And maybe in that time, there are many Christians

01:19:28.120 in times like that,

01:19:28.920 there have always been many faithful remnants,

01:19:31.500 many Christians that look to their God and said,

01:19:34.280 Lord, we're going to try. We're going to put one foot in front of the other, the good works you've

01:19:38.140 laid before us, and we're going to try to build Christian civilization. Even if in your providence

01:19:42.040 now is not the time when it will prosper, we're still going to go down fighting. We're still

01:19:46.760 going to try. And maybe though, maybe the Lord will prosper it. Well, that is kind of the irony.

01:19:53.720 You know, I tell my sons this all the time, dealing with any situation, I won't even try

01:19:59.400 to butcher the Latin, but fortune favors the bold is an old saying. And I've found this in

01:20:04.540 my life where it's like, when you're being a coward, when you're being weak, when you're

01:20:07.660 shrinking back, things seem to go worse and worse. Yeah. But providence, I would say God's kindness

01:20:14.200 and providence smiles upon the bold man. And it's like, even when you're, we're doing it

01:20:20.060 imperfectly. We're not perfect men. We're not the brightest. We're not the smartest, whatever.

01:20:24.320 but God seems to love to bless courage.

01:20:28.560 Yeah.

01:20:28.940 And so encouraging that in our people,

01:20:30.800 like just be courageous in this moment,

01:20:32.960 fight the good fight.

01:20:33.660 As you said, we don't know what will happen,

01:20:36.020 but look at the odds for someone like Godfrey.

01:20:39.100 Yeah.

01:20:40.160 I mean, even as his men kept getting whittled down,

01:20:42.800 the fact that he did not give up on Jerusalem.

01:20:45.320 No.

01:20:45.880 That he was like, no,

01:20:46.740 we are going to see this through to the end.

01:20:48.940 One other thing I will say,

01:20:50.440 and we've talked about this before,

01:20:51.800 you remember the first crusade and then you had the people's crusade the people's crusade was a

01:20:57.780 disaster they got crushed immediately i would describe that as like a completely populist

01:21:03.540 movement one thing godfrey shows us is that we need quality leaders and men who are from the

01:21:11.880 nobility so you're gonna need leaders who have resources you're gonna need leaders who know how

01:21:17.380 to command men yeah like everything that was in disarray godfrey shows up and even great men like

01:21:22.820 boemond and raymond they're like he's in charge yep that man we're following that guy and what

01:21:28.400 do they do they succeed yeah and there's lots of peril and there's there's tumult but yeah

01:21:32.700 you've said it before elite theory we still need yes elite men we do we don't just need people with

01:21:41.400 no resources talent and gifts they will be part of the battle too absolutely but you're still

01:21:47.060 gonna need great leaders no we need great leaders like i even think here in ogden what a difference

01:21:52.080 you know two or three um godly institution leading type of quality men with the resources

01:21:59.800 to back them who are all in on the mission would make and and the thing is if the if that's not in

01:22:06.300 the providence for us the lord will provide some other means here in ogden that's that's great

01:22:09.820 And things are great, but you look at the disproportionate impact that 10 or 15 talent man who's going all in on his 10 or 15 talents can have and really believes in the mission.

01:22:30.160 And it's like, right now, there are Christian millionaires and billionaires who are absolutely wasting their life and wasting their resources and funding absolutely stupid and effective things.

01:22:41.660 Or just accumulating toys.

01:22:43.320 That could have an absolutely massive impact on Christendom.

01:22:47.800 Well, even you think about something like, we've all probably seen those awful He Gets Us commercials.

01:22:55.420 Yeah.

01:22:56.040 And, and somebody will correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I'm almost positive those were

01:23:00.400 funded largely by the guy who owns Hobby Lobby.

01:23:04.140 I don't know.

01:23:04.960 That sounds right, but I don't know.

01:23:06.400 So when you look at that, it's like, um, the gospel coalition heavily funded by conservative

01:23:11.800 Christians and you're looking at it and you're saying to yourself, people wake up like it's

01:23:17.700 not, we actually have a lot of resources and money if people would learn how to invest

01:23:22.340 them in things that don't suck.

01:23:23.860 Yeah.

01:23:24.100 And so I think knowing that, again, and then in his kindness and providence, the Lord loves to turn things on their head and say, actually, I'm going to use the faithful people who have nothing to put to shame the people who have everything.

01:23:37.060 That's right.

01:23:37.640 And we'll bring victory from a place like that.

01:23:39.480 So I want people to be encouraged by that.

01:23:41.940 There is a lot of hope.

01:23:44.080 As we close, again, just plugging after hours, we're going to do a show, Monoculture versus, like, does that mean that you can't be friends with your Cuban?

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01:24:20.920 No.

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01:24:22.100 wisdom on our tongue wisdom on our tongue i've read through it a couple times now been really

01:24:26.440 blessed by it um i guess quick pitch why is that important for people yeah uh the the book is all

01:24:32.800 about it's the spirit of titus 2 all about helping women identify patterns of communication that are

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01:25:09.380 children and a lot of experience during nap times over a year period right yeah and a lot of it when

01:25:15.420 i read it it's funny because a lot of the stories are basically like i i remember that counseling

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01:25:55.320 Yeah, that was my immediate thought.

01:25:57.360 That 15% off discount is huge because as I read it,

01:26:01.500 I was thinking this would be great.

01:26:03.460 I would have loved this kind of book for like the ladies in the church to hand out 1.00

01:26:07.300 where women are doing book groups or reading stuff together.

01:26:10.260 Again, quick read, very punchy, very helpful. 0.64

01:26:13.140 And you want to jump on it.

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01:27:16.760 I've talked to a lot of single people who like the show too.

01:27:19.480 Really?

01:27:20.000 Yeah.

01:27:20.240 In terms of, you know, learn, like maybe they came from bad backgrounds.

01:27:24.480 Maybe they came from great backgrounds, but like getting an idea of like,

01:27:28.640 what should I be looking for in a spouse?

01:27:31.320 As I envision my future household, what kind of entity,

01:27:34.380 what kind of institution should I be pursuing?

01:27:36.660 And so that's really helpful to think through, well, 0.72

01:27:38.920 what kind of woman or man would want to join me in that kind of work.

01:27:41.900 Yeah.

01:27:42.280 It really helps identify that.

01:27:45.080 Yeah.

01:27:45.560 Awesome.

01:27:46.440 Really cool.

01:27:47.080 Brian, if you would close us down with, you know,

01:27:49.780 the winky, queasy winky, all that jazz.

01:27:52.840 Martin, what's the Spanish for that?

01:27:54.340 Make a slowly.

01:27:56.360 How would I say that in?

01:27:58.060 In Espanol.

01:28:02.280 Oh, you're still going to have to think about it.

01:28:03.800 I've got the Latin in the.

01:28:05.500 Okay.

01:28:06.380 Wink it.

01:28:07.480 Someone tell us.

01:28:08.300 listener on YouTube, put it in the comments. By the way, if you're not watching on YouTube,

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01:28:20.360 Write a comment, send it to your friends, tell them about King's Hall. And let me leave you

01:28:25.240 listener with this. The world may be telling you that you should hate yourself, despise your

01:28:32.420 heritage, and that you should go out quietly while they destroy and conquer everything that

01:28:37.720 your forefathers built. And to that I say, good sir, good ma'am, do not go gently into that good

01:28:44.340 night. Fight in the spirit of Godfrey. Take up the sword. Whatever the Lord's put in front of you,

01:28:50.260 do it courageously. Do it with skill. Don't coast through life. Take up the sword and be a man or

01:28:56.620 woman of valor. See you next time on King's Hall.

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The King's Hall - December 19, 2025

Duke Godfrey of Bouillon and the First Crusade

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