The King's Hall - King Alfred the Great and the Rise of England

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00:00:38.480 At its pinnacle, the British Empire was so vast it was the empire on which the sun never sets.

00:00:46.420 It encompassed as much as one quarter of the earth.

00:00:49.460 But 1,000 years before her height, the blazing inferno of power was merely a smoldering candle on the precipice of being extinguished.

00:01:01.360 The late 700 A.D. British Isles were a collective of nine minor kingdoms, closer to warring tribes than to true nations.

00:01:10.940 These kingdoms were Christian due to the missionary efforts of men like St. Patrick,

00:01:16.300 St. David, and ultimately a pope-sanctioned mission from St. Augustine in 597 AD.

00:01:23.900 Just to the east, a pagan storm was growing. The Northmen, Danes, or Vikings, through overpopulation,

00:01:32.300 or more than likely due to a global cooling and difficulty with growing crops in cooler weather,

00:01:38.300 sent their first raiding party to the ripe British Isles.

00:01:42.880 The first major Viking raid landed on a small island off the coast called Lindisfarne.

00:01:50.040 Dr. Ben Merkle says that.

00:01:52.360 Lindisfarne was probably chosen as a target since churches and monastic communities

00:01:57.580 offered the prospect of great wealth with very little protection.

00:02:02.440 In the following years, monasteries throughout Britain and Ireland would fall prey to the Viking raids.

00:02:09.080 The Vikings came from the sea arriving in a handful of their longboats, with little or no warning of their approach.

00:02:18.000 Their shallow-drafted ships were beached on the shore of Holy Island,

00:02:22.920 and then pulled far enough up the shore to be safe from the tide for several hours.

00:02:29.600 The monks, merely puzzled for the moment, watched from within the walls of the monastery.

00:02:35.440 Then, once the ships were secured, the Vikings turned to the monastery. It is unlikely that

00:02:41.880 they met any resistance as they approached. No barrage of arrows and spears, no shield wall,

00:02:47.760 not even an armed guard. After gaining an easy entrance, the raiding party plundered the

00:02:54.340 monastery of whatever portable wealth could be found, hacking to pieces whatever feeble resistance

00:03:00.800 the monks may have made. Gold, silver, and jewels were seized and hauled back to the beached long

00:03:08.000 boats, as well as any captives who might be sold on the slave market. They struck swiftly and

00:03:14.540 ruthlessly, and then they quickly fled before any counterattack from a neighboring village could be

00:03:20.620 mounted, end quote. This attack was a taste of what would come from the Viking invaders.

00:03:27.140 It was merely a first small raid of a scouting party to test defenses and gauge the wealth of

00:03:33.980 this land. To the Anglo-Saxon people of the British Isles, it was a new threat, but one has

00:03:40.780 to ask, was it only a threat from a hungry pagan tribe or was it more? Could this be a sign of

00:03:48.200 God's judgment? In answer, an Anglo-Saxon historian offered his observation. In the year 793,

00:03:57.780 terrible portents came over the land of Northumbria and miserably afflicted the people.

00:04:04.080 There were massive whirlwinds and lightnings and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air.

00:04:10.080 Immediately after these things, there came a terrible famine. And then a little after that,

00:04:15.700 Six days before the Ides of January, a harrowing of heathen men miserably devastated the Church of God on Lindon's Farm by plunder and slaughter, end quote.

00:04:29.860 This raid at Lindon's Farm became a wave of attacks from the pagan Northmen.

00:04:35.180 They targeted monastery communities, bathing the walls of these holy places in the blood of priests in their brutal attacks, and plundered all silver and gold as well as people for the slave trade.

00:04:48.900 They had no regard for the Christian churches or their sacred items.

00:04:53.440 Modern scholars confidently declare that the Vikings were opportunists, which proved to be true,

00:04:59.260 but that the targeting of monasteries was merely because of their poor defenses and the wealth

00:05:05.260 they contained. But was there more to the invasion than mere opportunism? Was the targeting of these

00:05:12.500 Christian places of worship a coincidence? Alcuin, a former clergyman from York and a

00:05:18.760 leading scholar in Charlemagne's court, wrote the following. For nearly 350 years, we and our

00:05:26.280 fathers have dwelt in this most beautiful land, and never before has such a terror appeared in

00:05:32.100 Britain, such as the one that we are suffering from this pagan nation. Nor was it thought that

00:05:38.640 a ship would attempt such a thing. Behold, the church of St. Cuthbert, splattered with the blood

00:05:45.180 of the priests, plundered all of its treasures, a place more venerable than anywhere in Britain

00:05:51.160 is given over to pagan nations for pillaging. The heritage of the Lord has been given over to a

00:05:57.780 people who are not his own, and where the praise of the Lord once was, now is only the games of

00:06:05.140 the pagans. The holy feast has been turned into lament. Carefully consider, brothers, and diligently

00:06:12.060 note, lest this extraordinary and unheard of evil might be somehow merited by the habit of some

00:06:19.840 unspoken wickedness. I am not saying that the sin of fornication never appeared before among

00:06:26.520 the people. But since the days of King Elfwood, fornications, adulteries, and incest have

00:06:33.560 inundated the land such that these sins have been perpetrated without any shame, even against nuns

00:06:40.400 who have been dedicated to God. What can I say about greed, robbery, and perverted judgments?

00:06:46.780 when it is clearer than day how much these crimes have flourished everywhere and it is witnessed by

00:06:54.020 a plundered people end quote. Alcuin continues in a second letter to Higbald the bishop of the

00:07:01.620 plundered Lindisfarne. In his correspondence he sternly admonished the Christians of Lindisfarne

00:07:07.920 that a disaster of this magnitude must be answered first and foremost with repentance

00:07:13.760 lest further catastrophe follow. He wrote,

00:07:18.360 What confidence can there be for the churches of Britain

00:07:21.860 if St. Cuthbert, with such a great number of saints, does not defend his own?

00:07:27.860 Either this is the beginning of some much greater anguish,

00:07:31.940 or the sins of the inhabitants have demanded this.

00:07:36.180 Clearly it has not happened by chance,

00:07:39.280 but it is a sign that this was well-deserved by someone.

00:07:43.760 If there is anything that must be set right in your grace's behavior, correct it swiftly, end quote.

00:07:51.840 Perhaps it was too late for the people to turn back.

00:07:55.060 God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

00:07:58.360 But maybe the people of the British Isles had stored up too much unrepented sin for too long.

00:08:05.120 Maybe the long fuse had smoldered all the way down.

00:08:09.120 Whatever the reason, God's judgment through the pagan Viking instrument had begun.

00:08:15.360 After 72 years of intermittent Viking raids, there was a sense of terror and constant anxiety that had spread among the Anglo-Saxon peoples.

00:08:26.480 Another Viking attack came, though, unlike the raiding parties that had sailed to the island before.

00:08:32.700 This time, it wasn't merely a raiding party. It was a full-fledged army.

00:08:38.440 At 5,000 strong, the Viking army marched into the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria

00:08:45.660 and launched a surprise attack on November 1st, All Saints Day.

00:08:50.960 It was not by accident the Vikings attacked on this holiday.

00:08:55.420 They knew the Northumbrian capital city of York would be filled to max capacity,

00:09:01.320 making troop movements difficult.

00:09:02.940 There was also the benefit that the North Umbrian noblemen would be in attendance with their wealth on full display.

00:09:11.100 The Vikings quickly took the unprepared city.

00:09:14.860 A few months later, the North Umbrians attempted to retake the city.

00:09:19.020 The initial attack went well for their army.

00:09:21.820 It appeared initially that the Vikings were caught unprepared, or they were unfamiliar with the tactics of defending a walled city.

00:09:30.180 The North Umbrian army breached the walls and, to their surprise, entered a quiet city.

00:09:38.340 They navigated the narrow city streets, looking for signs of their Norse enemy.

00:09:44.060 Suddenly, they were ambushed, both inside and outside the city walls.

00:09:48.320 The Anglo-Saxon King Eil was captured.

00:09:52.180 The Viking lords made an example of the king by sacrificing him to their god Odin.

00:09:58.280 The monstrous ritual sacrifice was called the Blood Eagle.

00:10:03.200 The king was held face down in the mud and manure-covered cobblestone streets.

00:10:09.100 An axe was used to chop his ribs on both sides of his spine.

00:10:14.360 The murderous shouts of the bloodthirsty Norsemen echoed around the city

00:10:19.260 as the king's ribs were pulled apart

00:10:21.460 and his still-inflating lungs were grappled from his body

00:10:25.400 as his gurgling last gasps of life were pulled from him.

00:10:31.480 The Viking army moved south with their eyes set on the kingdom of Wessex.

00:10:37.120 They soon met King Ethered and his young brother Alfred on the battlefield.

00:10:43.060 In a valiant fight, the Vikings overwhelmed the Wessex army.

00:10:46.980 The king and his brother quickly retreated to Ashdown.

00:10:50.060 The monumental Battle of Ashdown is among the greatest battles in the history of the West,

00:10:57.100 not because of its size, but because it gave us one of the greatest kings in history.

00:11:05.440 The Kingdom of Wessex was facing annihilation after their recent loss to the Viking army.

00:11:12.960 The Wessex battle plans had formed between Æthelred and Alfred. They would divide their

00:11:18.420 forces and immediately attack the Viking army. The Vikings had the high ground on a now-famous

00:11:24.560 hill. It goes by many names, but it is most commonly known as White Horse Hill. This hill

00:11:31.440 is an anomaly in the area, being the tallest point. One other hill of significance nearby

00:11:37.600 is known as Dragon Hill, where legend says St. George slew his dragon. The hill was the dragon's

00:11:45.440 burial mound. On the slopes of Whitehorse Hill, there stood a lone thorn tree that became a tree

00:11:52.800 of both measure of success and of remembrance for the soldiers who valiantly fought that day.

00:11:58.700 The Vikings, having the superior position and superior forces, observed Alfred leading his

00:12:04.520 forces into position. The Viking warriors, in a terrifying battle array, viciously mocked the

00:12:11.380 Saxon army. Dr. Benjamin Merkel describes the nature of Viking mockery in his book The White

00:12:17.580 Horse King. The Viking taught was studied an oft-practiced literary genre among the Danish

00:12:25.580 warriors. The subject matter of this mockery moved from general observation about the cowardice of

00:12:31.800 the opponent and how his corpse would soon be fed to birds, to more personal speculations about the

00:12:38.180 various womenfolk waiting behind in the Wessex villages, and usually culminated in the accusation

00:12:44.700 that the men of Wessex actually lacked any natural affections for women in the first place, end quote.

00:12:53.460 The Danish warriors did not show a hint of fear against this enemy they had defeated

00:12:58.700 merely four days before. Viking soldiers, by Danish law, were equipped with shields,

00:13:04.720 spears, and axes with the wealthiest carrying ornate swords. Alfred assembled his men below

00:13:11.900 an army that appeared more akin to a pack of bloodthirsty wolves than that of ordinary

00:13:17.600 mortal men who met their deaths in terrible battle. Alfred looked around with confusion

00:13:24.760 and perhaps some inward fear as he realized his brother, King Æthelred, was not in his position

00:13:30.920 to do battle. With this realization, Alfred was left with two choices. First, retreat and have

00:13:38.480 the Vikings chase them down from behind to be relentlessly harassed and killed in the ensuing

00:13:44.560 and disorganized rout. This would both decimate the Saxon military and its morale. The second

00:13:51.720 option was to stand and fight. Alfred determined that if this was their last stand, they should do

00:13:58.420 it with their shields up, rather than their shields left behind, strewn on the ground in retreat.

00:14:05.380 Alfred, embracing the bloodlust of battle like a wild boar, screamed the order in the Viking chaos

00:14:12.080 to assemble the shield wall. The Vikings, faced with a much smaller army than expected,

00:14:18.740 swaggered confidently as they assembled and advanced their attack down the White Horse Hill.

00:14:24.460 If they had known the history of this hill, they may have had more humility.

00:14:28.420 The hill received its name from the white rock

00:14:32.420 that was etched into the top of the hill

00:14:34.660 in the shape of a horse in full gallop.

00:14:38.220 This hill sits adjacent to Dragon Hill

00:14:40.360 where St. George killed a large fire-breathing dragon

00:14:44.140 in an unlikely victory.

00:14:46.420 The top of Dragon Hill has a bear patch where nothing grows,

00:14:50.100 almost as if the very poison of the dragon

00:14:52.580 prevents anything living from taking root.

00:14:55.740 Alfred had his own dragon in modern-day Uffington to kill, and the battle looked equally difficult.

00:15:02.660 The hopes of a victory on the scales of St. George was their only hope.

00:15:07.560 A victory here would prevent the roots of the Viking people from sinking into the lands of Wessex.

00:15:15.320 The Wessex men, reflecting the confidence of their leader Alfred, assembled the shield wall.

00:15:21.900 Dr. Ben Merkel says the following about the shield wall battle tactic.

00:15:26.240 Even as early as the time of Alfred, the shield wall was already considered an ancient tactic,

00:15:33.940 hearkening all the way back to the ancient Greek hoplites of the 7th century BC.

00:15:39.800 It consisted simply of a line of men standing shoulder to shoulder,

00:15:44.380 with their shields overlapping one another, forming a continuous wall of protection.

00:15:49.600 This line of shields was supported by a depth of approximately 10 ranks of additional soldiers positioned behind the front line,

00:15:59.600 leaning into the front rake to allow them to hold their ground and stay locked together, not unlike a rugby scrum.

00:16:07.760 This tight formation had the potential to be virtually impenetrable, provided that the courage and endurance of the soldiers held.

00:16:17.140 End quote.

00:16:18.140 The Anglo-Saxon culture demanded that a leader was, in fact, leading and not directing without

00:16:26.360 risk of harm. Alfred was a leader down to his bones. He had not only assembled the shield wall,

00:16:33.540 but joined at the front. Battle commands and troop movements could not be directed

00:16:39.040 over the cacophony of battle. As long as the men along the shield wall saw their leader fighting,

00:16:45.660 they kept fighting. As soon as their leader fled, they fled. The deep ranks of men were grist for

00:16:53.020 the shield wall mill. The shield wall would grind in battle. As shield pushed against shield,

00:16:59.660 spears prodding to find flesh in the small gaps created by the pushing men.

00:17:06.000 In the shield wall, the spears, not the sword or axe, was the most formidable weapon. Spears were

00:17:13.200 better at snaking through the wall, whereas slashing weapons became a hindrance due to this

00:17:18.920 brute force shoving match. As dangerous as a spear was to the shield wall, the danger of cowardice

00:17:26.520 was much greater. Many men could fall to the wounds of a spear without danger to the morale of

00:17:34.420 the men. In battle, men are wounded and killed in the fight. To a point, seeing a brother in arms

00:17:42.560 take wounds in the glory of battle acts as spurs in the side of a warhorse, feeding the battle lust

00:17:50.480 and the fervor of battle. However, if there are cowards in the shield wall, then the entire army

00:17:57.760 is at risk. One man fleeing was worse than many men being killed or wounded. A single coward seen

00:18:06.440 running for his life was at risk of taking the heart of the entire army from them.

00:18:12.560 As a result, such a man fleeing would cause a cataclysmic collapse of the shield wall,

00:18:19.380 and the repercussions would be a decimation of that army.

00:18:24.380 As soon as men began to flee, there would be no protection.

00:18:28.620 The army would be routed from behind as they were run down,

00:18:32.540 axes and swords finally free to swing at the backs of retreating men.

00:18:37.860 One coward could lose an entire battle.

00:18:42.560 That day on Whitehorse Hill, the Norsemen did not encounter a coward. They encountered a wild boar of a man. Alfred, leading from the front, pushed with his men. The much smaller army, taking courage from their leader, pushed the enemy back up the hill.

00:19:02.500 The Vikings had underestimated the leader of this small band of men.

00:19:07.380 In spite of their fervor, the Wessex men began to take losses from the ferocious spears and axes of the Viking warriors.

00:19:15.580 When a man was injured or killed in the wall, it was vital that the man behind him filled the gap.

00:19:22.460 Any hesitation would give the enemy a breach that they would fill with dangerous warriors.

00:19:28.760 The breach would cause the strength of the wall to become a weakness in the battle formation.

00:19:35.180 The men of Wessex filled the gaps without hesitation.

00:19:39.420 The next man, knowing his duty, filled the gaps.

00:19:42.620 The battle had reached the precipice.

00:19:45.360 One side had to give because of exhaustion from the grueling battle of shield-to-shield pushing.

00:19:51.960 The men of Wessex had thought their pagan enemies were invincible.

00:19:55.440 The resignation of glorious death was suddenly replaced with shock as the Viking lines disintegrated.

00:20:04.400 The massive Norse shields were replaced with the backs of the fleeing men.

00:20:10.020 At long last, King Æthelred had arrived at the battle.

00:20:14.140 Until then, the Vikings assumed they were fighting the entirety of the Wessex army.

00:20:20.080 Then the king, with the other half of the army, charged into their flank.

00:20:24.760 The rout was on, and the Norsemen were slaughtered in their retreat.

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00:21:13.800 well gentlemen welcome to this episode of the king's hall podcast i'm one of your hosts i'm

00:21:23.660 eric khan joined by pastor brian frenchman sauvet that's actually not my middle name i think i just

00:21:31.940 changed it's pronounced charlemagne charlemagne charlemagne i mean i'll accept that thank you

00:21:40.420 We're also joined by Mr. Dan Burkholder.

00:21:44.560 This has got to be a tough episode for you,

00:21:46.260 knowing that your people were utterly slaughtered and defeated.

00:21:48.740 I mean, those cowards.

00:21:50.540 Those cowards.

00:21:51.460 If only that was the last battle, though.

00:21:53.280 I know.

00:21:53.540 It wasn't.

00:21:54.080 There's a lot more battles.

00:21:55.040 Yes.

00:21:55.600 Gentlemen, we've been gearing up for this one.

00:21:57.540 I'm just kidding.

00:21:58.120 I'm not pro-Norse paganism.

00:21:59.680 Your people did a lot more rape in it for that.

00:22:01.540 Hey, I'm pro that they actually converted to Christianity.

00:22:04.820 They did convert.

00:22:05.960 They converted and fought in the Crusades.

00:22:07.700 So it was sort of like Convert or Die.

00:22:12.040 Gentlemen, this episode in particular, I think we've been talking about Alfred.

00:22:16.180 This is one of the episodes where I think for us, maybe kind of reading Alfred, Ben

00:22:21.300 Merkel, talking to him in a sense, sort of inspired the whole season.

00:22:26.840 There's just something about Alfred and this guy in particular, Dan, that is inspiring.

00:22:33.260 I think part of it, as we'll get into in this episode, he's it's sort of the typical

00:22:37.400 underdog story he's the guy with his back against the wall all that good stuff but just excitement

00:22:42.800 level on this one obviously you did a lot of the work for this episode no it's very high well i

00:22:47.840 didn't name my son after alfred so that's that's brian sauve over there pour one out for king and

00:22:54.200 not just alfred alfred kingsley alfred kingsley i just want to make sure everybody like nobody

00:22:59.740 misunderstands it it is it's like when aslan is like the talking lion is jesus right i want people

00:23:05.960 to be like this man this this man this king was named after the great there's no mistake we actually

00:23:12.560 we actually had two two children in the church after all of our alfred talk so we had two alfred

00:23:17.680 we had two alfreds what an amazing uh amazing name gentlemen the other thing that's uh interesting

00:23:23.900 about this episode as we talk about excitement you know you think about crusaders they all have

00:23:29.300 to have armor i was thinking about we received the the body armor from premier body armor one

00:23:34.460 of our sponsors and i don't know if we've talked to them yet about this but maybe the official

00:23:39.720 sponsor of the next crusade i don't i don't know how they'll feel about that as a marketing

00:23:45.840 opportunity eric but uh yeah certainly it would help i mean come on if you could go back in time

00:23:51.980 to one battle you know with a with a mod deuce 50 caliber and full plate carriers like which one

00:23:58.880 would you choose probably not that you know obviously not this one because the good guys

00:24:02.960 got the dub but it would definitely help yeah it's important battle uh speaking of important

00:24:08.020 battles and important content dan we also have we want to let our listeners know the deus vault

00:24:13.520 which is the patreon exclusive show uh recently we published an episode on christopher columbus

00:24:19.940 was he the last crusader was he dan i don't know we'll see what happens you got to listen to the

00:24:25.540 future that's a masterful tease yeah a masterful tease guys uh one of the other things we'll be

00:24:31.580 talking about, uh, in this episode, we're going to be talking about Alfred, but not everything

00:24:35.960 actually quite a lot to cover about Alfred. So upcoming episodes of the day was fault.

00:24:40.340 We're also going to be talking about a very important principle, really the theme for the

00:24:43.600 next conference here, June 6th through 8th in Ogden, Utah, but Alfred's boroughs. This is, uh,

00:24:50.760 pivotal for understanding Christendom and kind of Brian, a lot of concepts that we take for granted,

00:24:56.180 educational reforms, those sorts of things, I think will be really important as we continue

00:25:02.060 in the season. Yeah, those kinds of communities are highly applicable. The principles of them

00:25:06.600 to thinking through life in semi-hostile territory today and figuring out both defense,

00:25:15.140 depth, and all of the constituent parts of a community that's not just durable and can

00:25:20.280 withstand attack, but it's also worth preserving from attack. Because those aren't the same thing.

00:25:25.340 I mean, you could have a community that exists, but what is it making?

00:25:29.840 What is it producing?

00:25:30.640 And I think Alfred got that.

00:25:32.660 Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:33.160 The culture needed to be there at the center from the church and the people on out.

00:25:37.720 Yeah, well, it's sort of the Lord of the Rings, loving what's behind you.

00:25:42.240 Yeah.

00:25:42.760 Loving your culture more than hating the enemy, that sort of thing, and really having both

00:25:47.640 in place.

00:25:49.000 Brian, I want to start with you as well.

00:25:50.360 As we look at this episode, as I said before, you know, everybody loves this come from behind Hail Mary, underdog story.

00:25:57.700 You know, I know you're following the Super Bowl when you have the last man drafted playing quarterback in the Super Bowl for the New York Knicks.

00:26:06.700 Follow me now.

00:26:08.220 I genuinely have never heard of this until this moment.

00:26:14.280 Until this moment.

00:26:15.660 You could have put me on like who wants to be a millionaire, million dollar question, phone a friend, you're going to walk me through this because I have no idea what you're talking about.

00:26:24.040 But, yeah, you can definitely identify maybe not with Brock Purdy, since you don't know who that is.

00:26:28.260 I have no idea.

00:26:28.680 But with the underdog, the guy who is an unlikely hero.

00:26:33.380 And we have Alfred in this situation.

00:26:35.760 But I just want to ask you, what do you think about, you know, the human psyche that resonates with that particular type of story?

00:26:42.360 Why? Why do we?

00:26:43.200 You know, I think it's certainly something that God loves.

00:26:48.940 God loves this story because he uses it so often in history to demonstrate his own glory that he'll often raise up a single courageous man to who is not even the one who you would think would be the guy.

00:27:04.220 Right. He's not the firstborn or he's not the strongest or he's you know, he's the line up all of the sons of Jesse.

00:27:10.680 And he's the one who they forgot about because he's so unlikely.

00:27:14.520 Well, we got this like if God doesn't want any of these guys, we got this other kid.

00:27:17.700 He's like out there shepherding the sheep or or Gideon, who's, you know, at first doesn't

00:27:23.720 seem like he until the spirit of God comes as courageous.

00:27:26.420 I do think when you get this mixture of the judgment of God coming on his people, the

00:27:31.220 chastening discipline of God, that in the midst of that, this is just a storyline that

00:27:35.960 he has woven into so many of his stories.

00:27:38.240 Ultimately, I think because the master hero tale just is an echo from the story of the gospel where the God man faces down all of the hordes of death and hell and sin by himself and he conquers by dying.

00:27:56.300 right? He, he, he goes out and he, and then he chooses 12 like undereducated,

00:28:02.980 mainly blue collar guys, along with some enemies of state and enemies of the very people of God,

00:28:08.360 the tax collector. And he's like, okay, now, you know, I've, I've won the principal victory.

00:28:12.820 Now you guys go out and here's your mission. Just take over the whole world. That's it.

00:28:17.580 Just baptize all the nations, teach everybody to do everything I said. And they're like,

00:28:22.940 all right, we got this. So I think there's something because God wove that story into

00:28:27.540 the fabric of the world. I think he also wove that story into the fabric of the human soul.

00:28:34.060 And then the last piece for me is to see, is to notice, to get all of that, which I think most

00:28:38.420 of our listeners, they get that. But then to see that God didn't stop telling stories in 32 or 33

00:28:45.260 AD. God is still telling that story. God is still sovereign over history. God is still the one who's

00:28:51.700 orchestrating armies of Norsemen and the beleaguered the beleaguered forces, I guess, of God's

00:28:58.660 people, you could say they're like he's still telling that story and he didn't even stop

00:29:03.180 then.

00:29:03.640 He's still telling that story today.

00:29:06.040 Yeah, I think it's amazing.

00:29:07.300 It reminds me of the G.K.

00:29:08.860 Chesterton quote.

00:29:10.000 He says this, the one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on

00:29:15.000 Earth is to fight a losing battle and not lose it.

00:29:18.660 Yeah.

00:29:18.780 again, capturing really, I think what you were talking about, Dan, your thoughts on that?

00:29:22.880 Well, I think, I think the, this story really resonates with Brian, especially because you see

00:29:27.700 David and Alfred, uh, King David and King Alfred, both youngest sons, Alfred. I mean, he had all

00:29:35.400 of his brothers were killed in front of him. That's, he was unlikely to become King kind of

00:29:40.260 sickly. He was, yeah, he was kind of sickly. Um, but he was a youngest son. And I think it just

00:29:44.980 shows to brian that you know what the youngest sons you know they don't have to be petulant

00:29:49.880 spoiled no they can be they could be kings it's possible they can truly rise up and above their

00:29:57.580 station win glory above their station absolutely well often you know this is funny that you

00:30:02.300 mentioned that dan i take it that brian is the youngest son in british estates often because of

00:30:10.840 the inheritance of the firstborn, youngest sons, they didn't have an inheritance often

00:30:16.500 that was of much note, even among lordly and noble houses.

00:30:20.920 So youngest sons would often be the ones who would go out and they'd be like, well, there's

00:30:25.620 nothing here.

00:30:26.120 And so I'm going to the I'm going to the India.

00:30:28.320 I'm going to India, like the colony there.

00:30:30.840 It's like a young lion leaving the pride to go make it on.

00:30:33.820 I'm going to go like win glory myself.

00:30:36.000 And then they come back and they're like, oh, you know, how are you doing, older brother

00:30:38.700 They're here holding down the fort, you know, of the estate that you got to inherit.

00:30:42.560 I bet you've been going on a lot of fox hunts.

00:30:44.500 Well, I started an extremely profitable sugar plantation, and now I am a lord of Jamaica

00:30:51.300 or, you know, something like.

00:30:53.080 Jamaica is not in Africa, by the way.

00:30:54.640 Whatever.

00:30:55.440 Or India.

00:30:56.340 I went to public school.

00:30:58.460 The other day, Lexi asked me, where is New England, Brian?

00:31:01.300 And I was like, is that a city?

00:31:03.540 Oh, my word.

00:31:05.040 The city of New England.

00:31:06.520 I'm like, I know it's somewhere.

00:31:07.860 It has something to do with Tom Brady.

00:31:09.640 You know, there's, you know, some it's in America.

00:31:11.580 Wow, that's impressive of football.

00:31:13.000 Well, also, it's, you know, east of us.

00:31:15.620 So I was pretty accurate.

00:31:17.000 Brian arrives in Calcutta and he's like, hey, man.

00:31:19.720 Hey, man.

00:31:20.480 Why are you doing some of that jerk chicken, man?

00:31:23.020 And instead, they're like, would you like the Doritos Locos Taco from my 7-Eleven?

00:31:32.300 Having won the hearts and minds of all of America with those impersonations.

00:31:35.560 We are in the basement, but it doesn't stay in the basement when you speak like that.

00:31:40.000 It's important to remember that thousands of people will likely listen to this.

00:31:44.380 It's actually amazing to me how serious and moving this show can be and get derailed so quickly by quickie mark jokes.

00:31:51.500 And usually ethnic impersonations are what does it.

00:31:54.240 Well, those are the best.

00:31:55.800 I haven't done to Ojibwe in a long time.

00:31:58.740 We haven't done that in a long time.

00:32:00.500 Dan, one of the things that I want to move on to now is we think about the shield wall.

00:32:08.660 I'm thinking back to last year's conference in particular.

00:32:11.120 We had Mr. Nate Fisher from New Founding was here, and he was talking about the capital of courageous leadership.

00:32:18.900 Like this is the most important kind of leadership right now in our day.

00:32:21.540 But I think there's a connection here with Alfred and his courage in the shield wall.

00:32:28.580 So first of all, it, I guess, walk me through this.

00:32:31.880 Just why is that so important?

00:32:33.480 But especially for Alfred in this time, right, this particular time is demanding.

00:32:39.540 It's almost a moment like nobody would really want that position.

00:32:43.500 Yeah, it actually mirrors a lot of what's going on, I think, culturally today.

00:32:47.520 The reason that men right now are looking for courage instead of titles, that's really

00:32:54.540 Historically, what you've seen in recent history is you look for honorifics, you know, titles, credentials, things like that.

00:33:04.380 This was part of Nate Fisher's talk at our last conference is that credentialism is dying because people realize we're not in a neutral world, positive world where these men have been raised in institutions that actually create leaders.

00:33:20.580 and they have some sort of capital with some honorific on the end of their name, right?

00:33:25.720 And so now we have a time where essentially we're outnumbered and we've been betrayed

00:33:31.480 so many times by these credentialed men that the real test of true leadership are the men

00:33:39.500 that are going to say, assemble the shield wall.

00:33:42.220 We don't retreat.

00:33:43.160 We don't run from this fight.

00:33:44.460 Half of the half to half of the army didn't show up, which we see more and more in modern

00:33:52.360 American Christianity is that you are betrayed by those whom you often venerated as heroes

00:33:58.120 of the faith.

00:33:58.980 They will stab you in the back and they will take half the army from you.

00:34:03.420 And so you are looking for men that will actually lead from the front.

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00:39:40.760 Well, and I think too, if you look at our day and, you know, obviously sort of fast forward,

00:39:45.920 but you, you look at guys like maybe like a dusty diverse, I think like in our circles,

00:39:49.960 this is why it's such, I guess, just an encouragement. It's sort of draws men to

00:39:54.880 himself because Brian, in the midst of what we've seen in the evangelical world,

00:39:58.860 we haven't seen a lot of courage like this we haven't seen a guy say this is god's word i'm

00:40:04.260 not apologizing let's go yeah i like think about where this happens as well what kind of market

00:40:10.780 places and where the stands have to happen a lot of the time right now they're in the realm of of

00:40:15.800 words where are you willing to say the thing that you know has just instantly lost you all

00:40:24.460 possibility of patronage from the elites, from the in-group of the world, from their

00:40:29.280 inner ring, when increasingly in the evangelical world, that's who they're signaling to for

00:40:35.460 support, the Russell Moores of the world.

00:40:37.960 And in our world, we tend to think like those people's name is mud in our kind of circles.

00:40:44.140 But a lot of the time we forget how insulated we are and how small we are in the broader

00:40:49.440 world, that there are still massive political tokens, financial tokens to be gained from

00:40:55.800 being a traitor, like Dan said, from being the guy that you're actually, instead of fighting

00:41:02.980 courageously, not only are you not doing that, you're actively warring against your own

00:41:07.260 people.

00:41:08.260 There's still a lot of power and prestige and seats at important, quote unquote, tables

00:41:11.880 to be had by doing that.

00:41:13.600 And so today, like you think Dusty Devers is a great example where it doesn't matter tomorrow if the nine, I think he has like nine bills that he's proposed or something like that, that cover everything from pornography and sexting to no fault divorce to the currency and abortion, things like that.

00:41:35.180 It almost doesn't matter right now whether any of those bills succeed.

00:41:40.020 What we need are 100, 1,000, 10,000 men who are willing to fight what right now look like certainly losing battles.

00:41:49.020 Like Alfred standing there and saying, look, even if we get killed to the last man, we're going to be slain standing here on this hill with our shields in front of us.

00:41:58.940 We're going to draw the fire of the enemy.

00:42:01.000 We're not going to flee.

00:42:01.760 We're not going to try to barter, you know, and and give them, you know, a little more ground and a little more ground and a little more ground and hold them off.

00:42:09.700 We're just going to stand and we're going to fight.

00:42:11.360 We're going to take their scorn.

00:42:12.720 That's the shield wall today.

00:42:15.100 And cowards in that wall.

00:42:19.400 Cowards and turncoats are the most dangerous thing to face us right now.

00:42:26.380 Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you.

00:42:27.260 in the case. It fascinates me that the coward is actually more lethal to the army than somebody

00:42:33.060 dying. Yeah. I mean, look at when you look at Achan and his family, having sin and cowardice

00:42:40.640 in the camp is always deadly. It's always turns out to be deadly for the people of God,

00:42:46.540 you know? So it's like one of the ways that we need to weigh leadership today and weigh the

00:42:52.120 quality of leadership and who to follow is, um, is that kind of calculus? How much energy is spent

00:42:59.840 in flinging arrows into the, the, your people, how much time and energy is spent in the turf war?

00:43:07.860 Well, it does interest me because, uh, there was another video, I think Sam Holden put out,

00:43:13.300 uh, it was old sermon dubbed over it from Greg Bonson. So this is old, but one of the things

00:43:19.960 greg says in there that i find so fascinating he said you know back in the day westminster

00:43:24.660 seminary they rally their forces and they write their papers and what are they attacking they're

00:43:30.200 not attacking the rot in the culture they're not going after abortion none of it they're going

00:43:34.480 after the the big problem of the day then theonomy um and today you could probably see the same thing

00:43:39.680 with like you know what we really need to attack christian nationalism yeah and greg says in in

00:43:45.360 that video he says you're attacking theonomy and we live in a country where you have to lock your

00:43:50.500 doors and you're not safe in your home and you think that's the problem and that's the thing

00:43:54.560 we're going to wait more on noticing part of it is just recognizing dan like who is the enemy

00:43:59.680 who do we actually need to display courage i think so often what we see in our leadership

00:44:03.960 is they're trying to virtue signal to the left see i'm a good guy and you as brian said you end

00:44:10.160 up attacking your own people but part of the courage is saying who's the real enemy and will

00:44:14.560 Well, I take the stand that costs me.

00:44:16.480 I think that's what interests me about Alfred here is that.

00:44:20.080 In some ways, like you got to be standing there thinking like, I'm probably going to die.

00:44:24.780 Oh, yeah.

00:44:25.420 I mean, it's easy for us looking back to go, well, he won.

00:44:29.200 Of course, the courage was the right thing to do.

00:44:32.040 But he's looking, where's half my army?

00:44:34.960 Like, where is everybody?

00:44:36.780 And these insane, rapey, you know, mad fight to the death brawler kind of like they're

00:44:44.140 right and vastly outnumbering us gay vikings he's saying he's thinking i'm about to be

00:44:50.560 this is bad these remind me of the saracens this is this is terrible uh dan one of the things i

00:44:59.280 want to ask you there's something about great man i think a stonewall jackson i think about

00:45:05.240 alfred alfred is described as a wild boar something about battle transformed these men

00:45:10.640 seemingly ordinary men that you might not have looked to yet when the fighting starts there's a

00:45:17.140 certain kind of guy who proves out what is it about that it's manly courage it's a number of

00:45:24.640 things but what is it about that quality in a leader that is so important yeah i think it's

00:45:30.460 actually an intangible to a degree but there is something universal about all these men

00:45:35.400 that you had mentioned, especially a guy like Stonewall Jackson. Here's a guy who was not very

00:45:41.500 popular, you know, as a teacher, a professor, his students didn't particularly care for him

00:45:47.000 too much. But for some reason on the battlefield, what he did was he won their hearts to courage.

00:45:52.800 That's really what it was, is he was able to win their hearts to courage. And it was more,

00:45:58.760 you know, it was more than just mere words. It was because he was at the front too. He had proven

00:46:03.780 out that no i'm willing to take take shots here i'm willing to be fired at i'm willing to be on

00:46:10.160 the front line he was actually risking something that's right and that's what alfred did as well

00:46:14.300 it's why this story is particularly inspiring to me is because you actually see this was a

00:46:20.340 this was an expectation from the in the anglo-saxon culture is that the leaders had to

00:46:25.220 lead from the front he was in the middle in the front of the shield wall and the men to his right

00:46:29.520 and to his left were his lords that he had given gifts to and they had given him their vows that

00:46:35.940 they would stand in battle and the men were inspired by that yeah uh brian i want to ask

00:46:42.240 you as well when you look at our situation today do do you think we have cowards in the shield

00:46:49.200 wall and if so specifically where do you see this happening well one way that we know for sure we

00:46:54.500 have cowards in the shield wall is that anybody listens to us here in ogden at all because we

00:46:59.640 have you know one of the the astonishing things about ogden utah is that we have zero theological

00:47:05.280 degrees period zero institutional help nobody from x29 or some big organization was like hey

00:47:12.440 follow these guys they've really you know they've gone through you know our our whole process we've

00:47:17.860 you know they've kissed the right rings and now here they are and people listen to this podcast

00:47:22.480 and change their entire lives.

00:47:24.500 That could have been more offensive than your Indian 7-Eleven joke, by the way.

00:47:29.820 It is true, though.

00:47:30.520 It's like not gatekeeper approved.

00:47:32.300 Yeah, and why?

00:47:33.640 It's actually funny to me.

00:47:35.820 It's because, you know, over and over, what did we have to do?

00:47:40.900 We had to just notice something, fight a big battle in our own midst first,

00:47:46.560 like in our own, okay, we think this is true.

00:47:49.220 We're going to stand here and we're just going to say,

00:47:52.480 the true thing. And, and most of the time it's like not in the most sophisticated, again,

00:47:57.940 we can't appeal to degrees. It's, it's not like this high learned for the most part,

00:48:02.900 we've just kind of figured this thing out as we go. And, and I'm not trying to toot our own

00:48:07.120 horns. I'm saying that this is a pattern generally right now in the Christian landscape is that

00:48:12.020 because one of the reasons credentialism is dying is because all of those processes to appoint the

00:48:19.380 voices, the people you should listen to.

00:48:22.060 Ultimately, what they produced were cowards who gave way at exactly the point of the enemy's

00:48:27.460 attack over and over and over again until they had given away all of the institutional

00:48:32.880 power that good Christian men for a century plus had built.

00:48:37.360 So they gave all of that away.

00:48:39.220 And now people are looking around.

00:48:41.360 And what are they actually looking for?

00:48:43.540 Most often, the thing they're looking for is simply courage at the point of attack.

00:48:48.700 Courage on issues like feminism, courage on issues like race and racism and DEI and all of these equity inclusivity things, courage in the front of a million different issues where the leaders have given way.

00:49:03.680 So I know that there are cowards in the shield wall today, partly because we even exist, right?

00:49:09.800 Yeah, I think that's really true.

00:49:11.360 Obviously, you could think of people like the Gospel Coalition, the Russell Moores of the world, David French's, people like this.

00:49:17.500 um dan what what else i guess comes to your mind when you think of cowards in the shield wall where

00:49:22.080 do you see it well yeah uh just piggybacking off of brian's point that the credent mere

00:49:26.400 credentialism isn't enough because it's lost credibility because of the production of cowards

00:49:32.940 but but the thing that i think is easily missed is that that's actually the aim yeah that's it

00:49:38.560 was actually the aim was to produce and cowards and so you see in this battle at ashdown which

00:49:44.700 honestly was a small battle it was like i'm surprised it's even made it into the the footnotes

00:49:50.380 of history there's very little recorded on alfred but what you really see is a good image of what

00:49:57.320 we have today so you have these vikings that had fully embraced their sexual immorality they'd

00:50:03.140 embrace slavery human sacrifice and uh you see similar things today but because there were no

00:50:11.700 cowards in Alfred's army they were able to stand and fight from this pagan onslaught but today we

00:50:18.940 have cowards in the shield wall who are not fighting not only are they not fighting but

00:50:24.960 they encourage others to not fight they're actually actively leading in their cowardice

00:50:30.800 to cause Christians to retreat and usually the route to happen usually see this with

00:50:36.280 institutions and churches falling yeah usually attacking people who do fight that's right exactly

00:50:41.620 The sin, and it proves your point, Dan, that what they're trying to create is cowardice, is that the one sin that the elites will go the hardest against is fighting.

00:50:53.200 And it's fighting the thing that is not regime approved.

00:50:56.360 You are not allowed to notice that.

00:50:57.960 You are not allowed to fight that.

00:50:59.220 You're not allowed to name that.

00:51:00.740 You're not allowed to write on that.

00:51:02.620 You're not allowed to podcast on that.

00:51:04.440 You need to hush hush.

00:51:05.280 This is when backroom conversations happen, when text messages are sent and phone calls happen behind the scenes and say, hey, hey, you can talk about anything, but you can't talk about that.

00:51:14.420 You got to quiet down about that.

00:51:16.200 Those are where you start to see the cowardice where people are retreating precisely at the.

00:51:22.400 Well, it's like, no, no, no.

00:51:23.440 The Norsemen are there like we got to talk about that.

00:51:26.080 We got to go attack there.

00:51:27.240 And there if you start to rally people.

00:51:29.740 And it seems like you've got problems in your own camp.

00:51:32.000 Let's let the Norse worry about themselves.

00:51:34.640 Exactly. It's like when as soon as you start rallying people and there becomes a momentum towards this, you will see 50 different strategies unfold to attempt to geld that force to say you better not march over there.

00:51:52.700 And what you're often finding are the places where the levers of power from the pagan world have effectively been stabbed into the church and they're pulling hard.

00:52:06.620 And you're seeing and it's like, but that right there is actually when, you know, you need to go run full tilt.

00:52:12.620 You're like, oh, they they if they want us to stop here, it's like full sent.

00:52:17.840 You know, that's, that's when you go shield wall up boys, let's, let's go.

00:52:23.220 And a lot of the time in our world, it's so funny.

00:52:26.520 It's, it's, it's not funny, but right now with the world is, the battle is over ideas

00:52:31.560 and it's the, it's, it's meme warfare, right?

00:52:35.320 But the thing is, it doesn't end there.

00:52:38.180 If you lose the battle of ideas, the next kind of warfare is, is back to Alfred and

00:52:43.540 the Norsemen.

00:52:44.060 it's back to, oh, they're actually enslaving and killing and, you know, destroying whole

00:52:50.960 civilizations.

00:52:52.480 Yeah, it's interesting because I was thinking of Michael Walsh's book, Last Stands, and

00:52:57.260 it's a concept you find in Churchill, but also Michael Walsh catalogs in Western civilization

00:53:02.980 all these times in which Western peoples fought to the death, including the Spartans.

00:53:09.800 That would be like one of the greatest examples of 300.

00:53:12.880 We can think even of like Gideon's 300.

00:53:15.640 But it's interesting because they say, and now Alfred, who clearly knew his history,

00:53:20.600 if a people will fight to the death, they usually come back.

00:53:24.320 If they surrender and are defeated, they're done forever.

00:53:27.680 It's over.

00:53:28.240 And so I think just on issues like post-millennialism, patriarchy, I get it.

00:53:32.260 The culture hates you.

00:53:33.460 The culture is telling you these things are never going to take root again.

00:53:36.360 You're never coming back from the grave.

00:53:37.920 And I think to have this mentality among our people where it's like, give me 300 good men and we'll die for it.

00:53:44.380 And you even think about the Spartans.

00:53:46.840 They stopped the Persian invasion.

00:53:50.340 There would be no Western civilization without 300 good men defending the gap.

00:53:55.420 Yeah.

00:53:55.940 And so I think that's what we have to do.

00:53:57.560 The other thing I would say about Alfred, I love this picture of when you read the account of Ashdown, it's simply to him a matter of duty.

00:54:06.920 he says my brother's not here yeah this is my duty and he immediately goes to the front and he

00:54:13.580 knows what a king is supposed to do yep and he starts fighting there's actually not a lot of

00:54:18.380 drama in the moment in terms of like him like hand wringing and i need to you know i need to

00:54:23.140 say a prayer to god i don't know what to do he knows he has to champion the men he goes and he

00:54:27.800 fights he puts his life on the line this was also only the second battle he had ever fought in yeah

00:54:33.020 You know, as I mentioned in the cold open, yeah, he had fought a battle four days before,

00:54:37.120 but they had been utterly defeated.

00:54:39.140 Yeah.

00:54:39.360 Like it was, it was not even close.

00:54:41.020 They were routed there.

00:54:42.320 And so he had just come off the heels of a loss and with an experience.

00:54:46.300 And so it's actually quite amazing that he was able to do that.

00:54:50.080 Yeah.

00:54:50.260 One of the other things I want to highlight and we'll ask you a question about this that

00:54:53.660 I just find so intriguing in the parallels for today.

00:54:57.200 So Ethelred, right?

00:54:58.520 Alfred's brother, who is, I think at that time he's supposed to be king.

00:55:02.040 He's king.

00:55:02.680 He's king.

00:55:03.140 He's definitely king.

00:55:04.400 He doesn't show up to the battle on time because he lingers long in his prayers.

00:55:09.820 Now, one of the things that I tend to notice today is I think that we have a lot of cowardice

00:55:14.520 that masquerades as pietism or radical two kingdoms theology.

00:55:19.520 So I want to ask you about this.

00:55:20.760 Do you agree?

00:55:21.360 Do you see sort of this bent where I see a lot of the people you talked about him before.

00:55:25.940 A lot of the people who are most upset with the Dusty Deavers is like the pietistic camp.

00:55:32.560 And R2K camp obviously hates us, hates anybody like Dusty who's trying to change the world.

00:55:38.220 I heard one of the R2K guys recently saying the state and the church cannot do anything to speak against Hitler if they were back in that position.

00:55:48.700 They can't do anything to speak against the evils of the world.

00:55:51.400 They just have to allow them to happen, whatever they are.

00:55:54.000 And it got me thinking, it's like, well, isn't this just pietistic cowardice?

00:55:57.720 So I want to get your thoughts on those.

00:55:59.440 Yeah.

00:56:00.500 Back to the battle.

00:56:01.600 so the reason that they were split is because the viking army had actually divided in two

00:56:09.200 and so alfred and ethelred had decided they were going to split in two as well

00:56:13.940 and then you have uh king ethelred he is in mass and in prayers and there's some debate whether he

00:56:24.680 was actually a coward or not but as you recall they just suffered defeat four days earlier

00:56:31.180 And so his excuse was that he was in mass and deep in prayer and didn't show up for

00:56:35.860 the battle.

00:56:36.300 Well, Alfred now has both armies, the Viking armies that are converging on him and did

00:56:42.760 converge on him.

00:56:43.900 And the thing is, we definitely see this today, like you said, with, you know, that example

00:56:49.680 of not speaking against Hitler, the church shouldn't speak against Hitler or the evils

00:56:54.320 of our day.

00:56:54.980 uh and the thing is the shroud of pietism is just another prime example of cowardice but what these

00:57:01.960 men don't actually realize i think in their piety because their their piety clouds their judgment

00:57:09.940 in such a way that they don't realize that their people are actually being stolen like their people

00:57:16.560 are actually being stolen and they're doing nothing to stop it and in fact are fighting a

00:57:23.460 counter war against those who are fighting not to belabor the point,

00:57:27.600 but this is definitely alive and well right now.

00:57:30.840 And,

00:57:31.740 and I think that that is another prime example of cowardice.

00:57:34.800 Yeah.

00:57:34.920 You see a big towel for cowardice in the church is when you find that

00:57:43.960 inaction is being promoted as a theological value.

00:57:50.600 In other words,

00:57:51.760 again,

00:57:52.100 the thing that will get you in the most trouble is fighting certain issues standing and many of

00:57:58.640 them are political issues standing up and saying they're moral political ethical issues like no

00:58:04.200 the church can't give away here we're being counter-discipled here we have to stand up on

00:58:09.100 something like sexuality we have to stand up on something like you know today one of the biggest

00:58:14.580 issues that is a hot button politically outside the church as well as this immigration issue like

00:58:20.860 illegal immigration where the, you know, North America is being functionally invaded by millions

00:58:26.000 upon millions of immigrants. And we know that the left is leveraging this in order to create

00:58:32.380 voters to bolster, consolidate their power and ultimately progress, you know, put forward an

00:58:39.940 antichrist regime, politically speaking on the whole world. That's what they're trying to do.

00:58:44.420 And so you'll see though, as soon as, you know, fundamentalists stand up and start saying we,

00:58:50.240 This is not this is not OK. In fact, if we would just go back to the doctrines of our forefathers and understood how they thought about things like nations and, you know, look at Stephen Wolf's book, we go back and we say, how did Calvin, how did the reformers think about nationhood?

00:59:06.180 And how the civil father and the city father ought to protect the commonwealth and, you know, all of these ideas, as soon as you start to recover those and say, wait, that actually applies here.

00:59:17.780 This is not just a political issue.

00:59:19.800 This is a spiritual issue.

00:59:21.460 There's an antichrist propaganda and machine that's rolling forward to not just win a political victory, but actually ultimately win in an asymmetrical war against Christianity.

00:59:33.360 Right.

00:59:33.940 We know this.

00:59:34.580 what happens the second you start rallying around and saying, we're going to fight on this front.

00:59:40.100 You immediately get 15 regime theologians who are saying, well, you hate the gospel and missions

00:59:46.080 because look, the mission field is coming to you. And how dare you fail to love orphans and widows?

00:59:52.340 And if you really, haven't you read the good Samaritan and they start to, they do really bad

00:59:57.700 theology. They do a lot of proof texting, but what are they doing? They are fighting against

01:00:04.580 You're actually they're fighting against Christians actually fighting the correct fight and they're doing it with a with emotional manipulation and theological justification.

01:00:15.620 Like that's not actually our job.

01:00:17.480 Christians, let's just preach the gospel.

01:00:19.380 Yeah, this is the thing years ago.

01:00:20.640 I mean, they've been saying it for a long time, but like Russ Moore, he was like, well, you know, Jesus was a brown skinned immigrant from the Middle East.

01:00:27.120 Right.

01:00:27.320 But except that he wasn't.

01:00:28.780 But I mean, none of which is true.

01:00:30.580 Go off, King.

01:00:30.940 But even the new commercial series, like the He Gets Us, it's like, you know, two immigrants, like beating the tar out of each other.

01:00:40.320 It's like domestic violence.

01:00:41.400 And they're like, have your relationships ever been strained?

01:00:44.600 Jesus gets you.

01:00:46.260 I'm like, wait, I don't understand what is happening.

01:00:49.000 Hang on just a second.

01:00:50.300 Hang on just a second.

01:00:51.660 It's it's a classic move, but it's just you get regime.

01:00:54.780 theologians will always protect the interest of the regime and they will

01:00:58.700 weaponize theological justifications in order to

01:01:02.780 keep the people conveniently inactive.

01:01:06.600 Well, this is the whole David French, Russ Moore, and whatever the Chinaman guy is

01:01:10.200 that they do this theology series together.

01:01:14.080 But the whole thing is, they were talking about the church

01:01:17.660 is not a place to talk about politics. You need to be completely neutered from these conversations.

01:01:22.940 Meanwhile, they're pushing 100 percent like leftist political theology.

01:01:27.600 Right.

01:01:27.780 The church is not a place to push politics.

01:01:29.720 But if you love your neighbor, get the vax and unlimited immigration.

01:01:33.600 That's not political.

01:01:35.080 Those are gospel issues.

01:01:36.620 That's not political.

01:01:37.500 And it's just if what we need to do is train the people to see through that and actually say, OK, here's a prerequisite for a leader in the camp.

01:01:47.040 You have to be a guy that has consistently for the last five years or however long stood

01:01:52.320 up in the pulpit and poked the gods of the age in both eyes and been willing to say to

01:01:57.340 your church, even if you fire me, I'm not going to back down from this.

01:02:01.180 Even if the elder team runs political maneuvering against me, I'm not going to give into this.

01:02:05.920 I would rather be unemployed than to be a regime theologian.

01:02:10.700 Like those are the issues today, again, that are creating this system of the trust economy

01:02:16.260 where the credentialed are losing and they know it.

01:02:20.540 And that's why they're shrieking so loud right now.

01:02:22.480 Yeah.

01:02:23.100 They're losing.

01:02:24.340 And people who are simply often Bubba's like guys that are not elites in any sense of the

01:02:32.020 word.

01:02:32.160 They're just normal pastors like us.

01:02:36.040 Guys, I'm describing Dan's describing their midwits, you know, on the on the meme, you

01:02:42.700 know, the bell curve meme.

01:02:43.760 and you got the monk and you got the simpleton and then you've got the midwit in the middle.

01:02:47.420 We're like on the left.

01:02:49.180 All of the most important leaders right now, with few exceptions, are the guy on the left

01:02:53.560 who's like, six-day creation is true.

01:02:57.440 God said it, you know.

01:02:59.920 Why is that?

01:03:01.320 Well, it's because people are wising up to this play.

01:03:04.340 It's not effective.

01:03:05.820 It's not going to be effective for long.

01:03:07.940 But we need to continue to be training people to see through this kind of regime theologian.

01:03:12.800 And yeah, really, if you're reading the story of our time, if if these guys were around to give Gideon counsel, yeah, they would say like, hey, don't destroy that that idol of Baal.

01:03:24.360 You know what we should do? Let's make a smaller version. We'll just bring it into the temple. Right. And I don't like it. I know you don't like it.

01:03:31.640 Nobody really likes it, but I think it would be best for everyone. Yeah. If we just put it in the temple and then it was an opportunity to evangelize these.

01:03:39.200 these right the bail worshipers will come to us yeah what we can do is we could say like we'll put

01:03:43.620 both you know worship of yahweh and the bail and it'll just be kind of a pluralistic sort of thing

01:03:49.160 where they they can choose we don't want to force anybody that would be really wrong and icky so

01:03:54.420 i mean freedom of a religion right this actually reminds me of the scene uh where samuel you know

01:04:00.500 saul is supposed to kill agag and he has this all these justifications why he let him live

01:04:06.920 blah, blah, blah. Maybe it was like that. Who knows? We don't get all the details. But I love

01:04:12.100 this very poetic scene that's probably crocheted and hanging over people's toilets in the South.

01:04:17.700 But Samuel flips out and he says, what is the sound of the bleeding of sheep then? Because God

01:04:24.360 gave you a command and he takes a sword and he hacks a gag to pieces. It's a priest right there.

01:04:30.580 That's a priest and a righteous response to evil. As you guys are talking about this,

01:04:35.000 I can't help but think the people in Alfred Shieldwall, if they would have turned and run, they're actually less cowardly than the leaders today who are actively seeking to undermine the fight in the first place.

01:04:47.140 Flee for your life.

01:04:48.580 You can almost understand a man who is afraid for his life.

01:04:51.640 Any man can be until and I haven't until you've been in a life or death.

01:04:56.160 Somebody is trying to kill you by cutting holes in you situation like lest any man should boast of his courage.

01:05:02.020 Right.

01:05:02.340 Of course.

01:05:03.440 But you're right.

01:05:04.100 That is, that is at least understandable.

01:05:06.900 It's still disqualifying and a sin and a grievous sin.

01:05:12.600 It's a grievous sin at the heart of masculinity,

01:05:14.420 but how much worse to be the guy that's like, pay the Dane geld.

01:05:21.320 Let's just pluralize.

01:05:22.660 Let's let them in.

01:05:23.600 Let's just.

01:05:24.740 Well, part of the reason that Alfred was in this position is because

01:05:27.940 Mercia, the King of Mercia paid the Dane geld and the Danes did go away

01:05:32.320 for a moment for like two minutes and they attacked Wessex right um yeah and we'll get

01:05:36.640 into Dane Gild in just a minute Dan but I do want to ask um which is actually ironic when you

01:05:41.500 consider Christians coming out against Christian nationalism and fundamentalism is essentially

01:05:47.420 taking the Vikings and turning them south yeah yeah because they attack those guys yep well and

01:05:52.840 I and I do think that the cowardice of the leaders today is more like hey we've sided with the Danes

01:05:57.780 And we're going to use like Christian theology to try and poison the Christians in Wessex.

01:06:03.600 As I said, I do want to ask you a question, though, about leadership in general, just to crystallize this point and clarify this point.

01:06:09.620 When you have a strong leader, obviously, we've talked about leading from the front as being important, a good practical application lesson for people.

01:06:18.240 What else would you put on that list?

01:06:20.700 Effective leaders, encouraging people to be that today.

01:06:23.920 Yeah, I think one of the things that Alfred displays and others like like we used Stonewall earlier is that they have foresight.

01:06:32.820 They're able to see what they're able to read the chessboard, if you will.

01:06:36.940 And they're actually able to see if they've hung their queen or not, which is probably too deep a cut.

01:06:43.200 But but a lot of times you'll get leaders that think they can read the chessboard.

01:06:48.540 They think that they're really good at it.

01:06:50.460 Yeah. Not realizing their own blind spots, not taking counsel from other respectable wise men, whereas these men, they could see the chessboard accurately.

01:07:01.520 They knew the times and they could see the consequences of something like flight.

01:07:07.320 So even even Stonewall was encouraging, you know, the Confederate Army to charge to.

01:07:13.740 Yeah, he he understood the only way we're going to win.

01:07:16.220 We have fewer people. We have far less manufacturing and economic ability.

01:07:20.460 If we don't win this war fast, we are going to lose.

01:07:23.640 You can't win a grinded out war.

01:07:25.280 And he was like, look, you've got to wage total war.

01:07:27.600 You've got to burn everything to ground that you follow.

01:07:29.680 And you've got to march all the way north until they don't have a stomach to battle.

01:07:35.660 That's the only way.

01:07:36.500 And everyone said, oh, that's icky, Stonewall.

01:07:38.840 That's so ungodly.

01:07:39.180 He actually would have saved lives, too.

01:07:40.940 And the thing is, he was right.

01:07:42.320 That's the only way the South could possibly have won outside of massive intervention from foreign powers.

01:07:48.060 That was it.

01:07:48.560 That's something else I think leaders, you have to understand is this principle of if you want to win, you're a smaller force and your back's up against it.

01:07:58.300 There's a level of aggression and audacity that you have to hit fast and fierce.

01:08:03.380 And even with the battle down, one of the things that I keep coming back to in our own present situation is pursuit.

01:08:10.220 When you have the enemy on the run, if you don't finish it, if you don't put them down, like you've got the wolves on the run.

01:08:17.600 That's, that's nothing they can, as we'll see, they can easily regroup and come back

01:08:22.220 and attack you.

01:08:23.180 You've got to go for the kill.

01:08:24.920 Yeah.

01:08:25.240 And decisiveness is another really important leadership characteristic that Alfred displays

01:08:31.460 and that's needed in our time.

01:08:32.700 So one of the things that is a temptation amongst leaders when they don't know what

01:08:36.900 to do is that they'll often start micromanaging other things.

01:08:41.100 Like, I mean, obviously it's not in the account of Alfred, but if he had saw the Danes and

01:08:47.580 he's like where's my brother what are we gonna do hey you guys you know what are you doing with

01:08:52.680 your shields like you know they're not ready you're like start critiquing everybody around

01:08:57.220 you and you're like attacking people in your own lines while there's an enemy that's ready to hack

01:09:02.800 you to pieces in in front you know through indecision just not knowing what to do so you

01:09:07.900 attack your friends that's that's a really bad thing that that leaders tend to do uh so decisiveness

01:09:14.200 is really important when alfred is faced with the enemy he knows the situation he can see

01:09:19.800 into the future if i run what are the consequences what is our our vision and okay here's what we're

01:09:27.040 going to do we're going to fight assemble the shield wall shows no no hesitation and shows

01:09:33.040 complete confidence and is able to lead his men we're going to fight here and not here yeah that's

01:09:38.880 that's the leader. The leader understands that you're almost never as a leader in a situation

01:09:44.880 where you have unlimited resources and can attack every possible problem. Multiple fronts even is

01:09:50.160 usually foolish. Right. The leader must know what is the correct front and concentrate his forces.

01:09:56.000 And even in that, a leader must be willing to lose. This is what so often has missed and allowed

01:10:02.500 the decline of Christianity, is leaders who weren't willing to lose. They saw battles and

01:10:09.720 they saw that they were battles that they disagreed with. They saw the enemy. They were

01:10:15.280 like, okay, if I allow this thing to continue in my church, then my church is going to lose over

01:10:21.500 the long haul. But they looked at those battles, many pastors, and this applies to lots of different

01:10:25.880 things other than the church as well. And they said, but I'm not certain I can win. I have a

01:10:30.520 chance of winning, but I might get run out of town. I might end up losing enough people,

01:10:35.780 losing my position, losing my safety, losing my comfort, losing my authority. And so a lot of

01:10:40.920 pastors, they, they play at fighting. They do small little feints and they kind of take small

01:10:47.060 little stands and then they, they might take back two steps forward, but then they give way three

01:10:51.200 steps back. And the enemy knows that if someone's not going to fight total war, that they can,

01:10:57.500 they can be strategic all day long that's what the left does they take they'll they'll huge swell

01:11:03.820 the tide full dei full wokeness full everything they'll let the tide get all the way to where it

01:11:08.840 is about 2023 i think that was like peak peak wokeness now there's kind of a cultural reaction

01:11:14.580 the right is ascendant people are starting to see this is ridiculous our planes are going to fall

01:11:19.360 out of the sky if they try to run on slay queen so we're going to have to like actually hire some

01:11:25.040 middle-aged white guys and like leave them alone a little bit more.

01:11:27.860 What will they do now?

01:11:29.340 They will let us take back 40% of the ground that was lost by their time so

01:11:34.200 that they can make another all out run five years from now.

01:11:38.660 And if you just follow that process, what's going to happen?

01:11:42.480 Well, total victory for them.

01:11:44.800 So a leader has to be willing to lose.

01:11:46.960 He has to be willing to die.

01:11:47.940 Like Alfred was going, this is it.

01:11:51.060 I'm willing to give it all right now.

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01:13:48.300 be entered into this giveaway thank you you go back to like world war one and two and the collapse

01:13:58.320 of the british empire the military and national collapse is actually secondary to the collapse of

01:14:05.540 the morale and the belief and the vision of the people i mean there was a time when when great

01:14:10.740 men aspire like alfred to great things and they believe them into the core of their being yeah

01:14:16.960 and so they fought and so i think for us especially this is again why history is so important for

01:14:21.800 leadership but do you actually believe in this project right do we actually believe in this

01:14:27.040 post-millennial vision and and of course the answer is yes but it it will result in a certain

01:14:32.260 kind of fighting spirit that is uh zeal as the greeks would call it a fire rising within you

01:14:39.700 Yeah. And fire always spreads. Yeah. One of the one of the reasons that we see institutional decline, we see companies decline and we see churches decline is because often you get a leader that is Alfred like that displays courage, men rally to him and then he has success.

01:14:55.540 But at a certain point, like what did Alfred had to lose? I mean, all of the nations around him are falling, right? His the king didn't show up to battle. There's you know, they're going to be annihilated is probably he's pretty much.

01:15:09.700 he's alone he's like well here we we've got a fight or else we're going to be decimated

01:15:14.300 you know in some ways you can say well that was that was an easier decision because he's already

01:15:19.240 dead so he's just attacking as a dead man but then as soon as he gains power and starts pushing back

01:15:25.540 the vikings and takes the kingdom one of the temptations that leaders have is after they've

01:15:30.880 grabbed enough power or had enough influence righteously unrighteously their main concern

01:15:37.000 is keeping it and so they soften

01:15:38.960 the message and back to your point

01:15:40.940 about like fighting feints and things

01:15:42.960 like that to show like hey there's some of the old

01:15:44.840 spirit left in you but it's all just

01:15:46.960 bluster there's a and they

01:15:48.760 slowly decline yep it's consolidation

01:15:50.980 of power that's not passed on to the next generation

01:15:53.180 well and maybe

01:15:54.880 one of the modern examples even

01:15:56.840 with Jordan Peterson remember like he

01:15:58.920 got famous for like really punching the left in the

01:16:00.920 mouth oh yeah and YouTube videos

01:16:02.760 you can fire me I don't care really great and then

01:16:04.940 And all the stuff now is like him crying and doing like bad Bible exposition

01:16:09.060 with like Ben Shapiro.

01:16:10.480 Yeah.

01:16:10.720 But it's, yeah, I think the desire to popularize or whatever it is that

01:16:15.400 that weakens.

01:16:16.280 And so good leaders have to keep the same vision as well.

01:16:19.760 I want to want to ask one question for you guys.

01:16:22.780 And then we're going to jump into another story here.

01:16:25.660 But we can also ask a question about luck, which I find interesting.

01:16:28.960 A lot of people said Alfred's lucky.

01:16:31.780 Right.

01:16:32.240 You said that about a lot of companies, great leaders, great teams.

01:16:34.940 whatever they just got lucky but it's interesting Dan we dove into this with great by choice they

01:16:39.960 talk about luck yeah and 30 year 10x companies who last and do a wonderful fantastic job they

01:16:46.360 found that most people have about the same amount of luck you read the story of Alfred and you find

01:16:50.940 well the Danes had luck too yep and it's really not about luck it's about what kind of position

01:16:56.060 you put yourself in to deal with the luck that you're given yeah to capitalize are you prepared

01:17:00.300 for the opportunity and I think about it like if you're if you think about a third string quarterback

01:17:04.200 maybe somebody like the Cardinals you have third-string quarterback guy named Kurt Warner

01:17:09.580 he's past his prime two guys get hurt and they're like Kurt we have no other options they go to the

01:17:17.180 Super Bowl because that guy was ready to step up so that's luck he also had a bunch of bad luck

01:17:22.740 so when you're thinking about great leaders Alfred his victories Dan how do you think about

01:17:27.940 and how do you process this issue of luck or good providence we might say yeah I mean in this

01:17:33.900 position. Sure. I think that the battle at Ashdown was Providence. If you, you know, it was good

01:17:40.680 luck, definitely. But he was in a position with his soldiers that actually was able to capitalize

01:17:47.020 it. And I mean, I mean, I just read redefined what you just said, but if he had not capitalized

01:17:53.080 on it and retreated, he, he had an opportunity to capitalize and he would have lost that. And

01:18:00.680 they would have surely been decimated and the same thing happens with companies or churches

01:18:05.300 um you know pastors where because of cowardice the opportunities do exist but you never capitalized

01:18:13.180 on it you don't know what could have happened if you had just made the stand who knows what

01:18:18.360 god would have done you're always waiting for it to be won and then step in to victory yeah or the

01:18:24.040 ideals like maybe the viking only half of the vikings show up to this battle and we outnumber

01:18:29.400 them. Now I'll be courageous. Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't work that way. You don't live in an ideal

01:18:35.200 world. And so you have to be able to display courage and take the opportunities, even if they

01:18:41.460 don't look like opportunities. Yeah. And I mean, a tragedy doesn't look like an opportunity,

01:18:45.380 but it often is. Yeah. Even 2020 was an opportunity. Like that's kind of our

01:18:50.440 kind of how we met. And so, you know, a lot of good, you know, new Christendom press,

01:18:55.200 all that kind of comes out of 2020 a lot of people didn't capitalize on 2020 um brian you

01:19:00.780 could even think about something like music i'm sure you've heard this before but anytime there's

01:19:04.140 some success in something people say oh brian's just really lucky and then you might respond

01:19:09.800 with like well yeah but you don't see the hours of production you don't see the work it's certainly

01:19:15.520 gifting talent all those things but as a wise leader that really means nothing unless you do

01:19:19.820 the work yeah lucky people there is such thing as someone who has a big break and they have a

01:19:24.960 momentary just success and maybe it's great like some people do get lucky and they they ape all

01:19:31.340 into you know some meme coin and become a multi-millionaire right but most of the time

01:19:37.260 those people when there's not a character they end up just failing in slow motion after that for a

01:19:42.300 long time you you you have to be consistent like you have to just every day do the thing you know

01:19:48.620 you're supposed to do 90 percent of the time you don't actually want to do the next thing

01:19:54.140 deep in your soul you know you like that third string quarterback does he really want to grind

01:20:01.120 it out for multi-hour workouts and then training sessions and knowing he's not going to knowing

01:20:05.360 there is a 1.3 percent chance that he's going to make it on the field and then and in an nfl game

01:20:11.480 this season at all let alone in a moment where he might actually really have an opportunity usually

01:20:17.680 it's like oh we're blowing out the other team here take a couple reps or you know what who

01:20:22.960 the character to do that gives the illusion often of luck being the thing but you know music is an

01:20:30.300 example most most of the people that you see who are like all of a sudden you start to see some

01:20:35.120 musician blowing up there's a lot of secular examples like noah khan right now big folksy

01:20:40.700 kind of had a couple hits and now everyone's like loves his music stick season baby stick season

01:20:45.180 And yeah, you sure. And it's like it's it's explicit, guys. So don't don't think that King's Hall is like, there you go. It's it's not great.

01:20:51.280 I haven't listened to anything. I just know. I just know it's popular.

01:20:54.480 Guarantee you that guy is in his mid to late 30s and has been grinding it out, making music and getting really good at that and writing.

01:21:01.860 And he's probably written 100 really bad songs. Right. Like and just ground it out.

01:21:07.440 and many most people who complain about luck have never had the fortitude to grind out a hundred

01:21:15.040 failed attempts at something or to just practice something and do it over and over and over and

01:21:19.380 over most people that sit on the sidelines and fuss about how people are just lucky most of

01:21:24.380 those people are just lazy and and that's fine they can keep they can keep sucking but you

01:21:30.760 Alfred, great leaders clearly are not just momentarily lucky.

01:21:38.100 Yeah, having all the virtues of character and discipline

01:21:40.420 and that sort of thing that will propel you to leadership greatness.

01:21:48.320 After the crucial Battle of Ashdown,

01:21:50.680 Alfred and his brother, King Æthelred,

01:21:52.720 suffered a defeat at the Battle of Ba Sing.

01:21:55.220 They conceded more land in their retreat,

01:21:57.340 falling back even further into their own territory.

01:22:00.600 After such a loss, a sound drubbing at the hands of the Vikings,

01:22:04.080 Æthelred and Alfred made a key decision in the history of the island.

01:22:07.960 Æthelred called the Witten a council of the wise men of Wessex before him.

01:22:12.380 He presented he and Alfred's plan for the succession of the throne.

01:22:16.400 If Æthelred suffered an untimely death,

01:22:18.740 then Alfred and his sons would claim the rights to the throne.

01:22:22.360 Alfred would have to provide for the family of Æthelred in exchange.

01:22:26.400 The Witten, after quick consideration, approved of the choice. The decision proved vital.

01:22:33.020 A few days later, Æthelred and Alfred led the Anglo-Saxons into a fateful battle at Merton.

01:22:38.880 The Battle of Merton proceeded much like the first few battles fought between the two armies.

01:22:43.980 Both formed shield walls, an echo of Roman times. Again, Æthelred and Alfred led from the front as

01:22:50.400 both sides exchanged spear thrusts. After several hours, the Anglo-Saxon shield wall remained

01:22:56.660 impenetrable. The lines of the Northmen crumbled and retreated. The exhausted men of Wessex wallowed

01:23:02.640 in their seemingly assured victory. In their joy of victory, neither Alfred nor Æthelred pushed

01:23:08.320 the pursuit. Instead, they relaxed. They casually approached the fleeing Danish line. But then,

01:23:15.360 Suddenly, and to their horror, the Danes collectively turned and reformed their shield

01:23:20.260 wall. The Saxon elation disappeared in an instant. They frantically reformed their shield walls,

01:23:26.800 but it was too late. The Viking army rolled over the Saxons and destroyed them.

01:23:34.900 Alfred and Æthelred lost all control over their men in the ensuing retreat as Saxon soldiers were

01:23:40.480 mown down without mercy. Alfred searched for his brother after the battle, only to find him

01:23:45.420 seriously wounded. The Vikings now seemed to be unstoppable and were making massive inroads into

01:23:52.520 the kingdom of Wessex. King Æthelred's major injuries only made matters worse. He struggled

01:23:58.020 with fever and loss of blood, and a few days later died of his wounds, leaving the throne of Wessex

01:24:03.020 empty. Alfred was next in line. The throne passed to him, and he was crowned on the 15th of April,

01:24:09.320 871 Anno Domini. It was not an ideal time to rule. A lesser man would have rejected it,

01:24:15.600 but as Alfred had shown at the Battle of Ashdown, he was no lesser man.

01:24:20.700 Alfred's rule began inauspiciously. As Easter had come, Alfred hoped for a new deliverance from his

01:24:26.320 godless foes. Instead, it was exactly the opposite. A new Viking fleet sailed up the

01:24:31.680 Thames with thousands of new warriors. They joined the already present Danish force at Reading.

01:24:37.860 They were led by three new Viking kings, Guthrum, Oskatel, and Anwend.

01:24:43.620 The Northmen had heard of England's easy plunder and had come in search of gold.

01:24:48.360 A few minor skirmishes occurred in 871 and 872, all of which resulted in losses for Alfred.

01:24:56.420 At the end of 872, Alfred was forced to buy the Danes off.

01:25:01.520 In exchange for money, the Danes promised to leave Wessex alone for five years.

01:25:06.420 Surprisingly, they seemed to keep their word.

01:25:09.400 The Vikings left Wessex and ransacked the surrounding countryside,

01:25:13.180 establishing a puppet king in the nearby kingdom of Mercia.

01:25:17.580 Dr. Merkel speaks to the Danegeld in his book, The White Horse King.

01:25:22.180 Quote,

01:25:22.940 Paying the Danegeld never buys more than short-term peace.

01:25:26.080 The payment reveals a weakness, a willingness to give up wealth without a fight.

01:25:31.400 And like the scent of blood to sharks,

01:25:33.480 this message could do nothing other than attract future Viking attacks, end quote.

01:25:38.440 A poem by Rudyard Kipling explains the Danegeld in plain terms.

01:25:43.380 And that is called paying the Danegeld.

01:25:45.880 But we've proved it again and again,

01:25:47.940 that if once you've paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.

01:25:52.280 Indeed, the action removed the Danes from the Kingdom of Wessex for only three years,

01:25:57.080 not the Promised Five.

01:25:59.140 During this time, Alfred should have sought to fix the problem with the Saxon system of military,

01:26:04.480 which did not have a standing army.

01:26:07.400 Instead, they had what was called a fjord.

01:26:10.200 When time for battle came, Alfred would call on his nobles who would supply their own small militias.

01:26:15.960 This process was clunky and inefficient.

01:26:19.520 Alfred was at a loss as to how to fix it and decided to just leave it as it was.

01:26:24.840 Near the end of the peace in Wessex, Alfred started to sense a Viking return.

01:26:29.900 He focused his sparse resources on building a small navy,

01:26:33.600 earning him the honor of being the father of the Royal British Navy.

01:26:38.500 In 875, Saxon watchers on the coast reported sightings of a fleet of Viking ships.

01:26:44.360 Luckily, the fleet contained only seven of the famous Viking longboats.

01:26:49.420 The Danes clearly had plunder in mind and not open warfare.

01:26:53.520 Nevertheless, Alfred personally led his small navy against the Vikings,

01:26:57.400 and they achieved a resounding victory.

01:27:00.020 One ship was captured, the other six put to flight.

01:27:04.660 Though the victory was small, it was sweet.

01:27:07.540 It gave the Saxons at least a small measure of confidence.

01:27:10.760 The following year, they would need all the confidence they could get.

01:27:14.500 Another Viking attempt to take Wessex would occur,

01:27:16.900 and this time, the Danish intent was not merely plunder,

01:27:20.300 but complete destruction of the Saxon people. As for the next Danish invasion, Ben Merkel writes,

01:27:28.460 in the year 876, the Viking King Guthrum, leader of the Danish forces occupying East Anglia,

01:27:35.720 led his army out of Cambridge under cover of darkness and began a hasty march toward Wessex.

01:27:41.080 Guthrum was able to lead his Danish army, virtually unnoticed, through the heart of Wessex

01:27:45.540 all the way to the southern coast, end quote.

01:27:50.060 Guthrum had caught Alfred heavily off guard.

01:27:53.020 By the time Alfred and the rest of Wessex became aware of the invasion,

01:27:56.780 Guthrum had already seized the town of Wareham.

01:28:00.020 Wareham was ideally located because it was bordered by rivers on two different sides.

01:28:05.440 The two rivers then connected to the back of Wareham,

01:28:08.640 therefore creating a natural defense on three out of the four sides of the city.

01:28:12.980 When Alfred finally arrived at the city,

01:28:15.540 Guthrum had already dug himself in and was amply prepared for a long siege.

01:28:22.120 Alfred was hesitant to indulge Guthrum in such a siege.

01:28:26.160 Wareham was clearly a naval base, surrounded as it was by water that was easily accessed by the sea.

01:28:32.840 But why would Guthrum choose a naval base when all he possessed was a land force?

01:28:38.220 Alfred believed Guthrum to be waiting on a large Danish fleet, which bolstered his sense of suspicion.

01:28:45.120 Alfred's two options appeared to be either laying siege to Wareham and hoping that Guthrum did not

01:28:50.880 have a naval force, or again paying the Danegeld to buy time. Alfred chose to pay the Danegeld.

01:28:58.500 Hostages were exchanged to force Guthrum to keep his word. Guthrum swore on the name of Thor that

01:29:04.280 he would leave Wessex. In a savage and ruthless display of barbarity, Guthrum slew his Saxon

01:29:10.760 hostages and slipped out of Wareham in the middle of the night. By the time Alfred caught up to him,

01:29:16.180 he had taken the city of Exeter, which was also well fortified. To compound matters,

01:29:22.000 the suspected Danish fleet was spotted along the southern coast, containing upwards of 3,000 men.

01:29:30.360 Alfred prayed for deliverance from the Viking menace and prayed that his lands would be delivered,

01:29:35.100 even if it involved a miracle. The prayers of the meek do not fall on deaf ears. John 9 31 says

01:29:43.380 now we know that God does not hear sinners but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will

01:29:48.380 he hears him. In an amazing twist of providence a massive storm wrecked the entire Danish fleet

01:29:54.660 ships off the coast some 3,600 men. The tables were now turned in Alfred's favor. Guthrum

01:30:00.660 negotiated a quick treaty and left Wessex. He returned to Mercia under pretexts of peace,

01:30:07.160 but raised a massive army and began preparing for yet another invasion into Anglo-Saxon territory.

01:30:14.960 Guthrum planned his next attack with impeccable timing. The Viking force on the border of Wessex

01:30:20.140 and Mercia launched a sneak attack on the 12th night of Christmas. The date of the attack was

01:30:25.300 a stroke of genius. Chippenham, a tactical advantage of a city, was occupied by Alfred

01:30:30.760 so that he could keep an eye on Guthrum in Mercia. But on the twelfth night, the good

01:30:35.800 Christians were celebrating the birth of their lord with great vigor. They left the city exposed.

01:30:41.540 Guthrum attacked and Chippenham fell in a single night. Alfred and his immediate family,

01:30:47.080 as well as their bodyguard, fled into the night. Alfred was then betrayed by several powerful

01:30:52.100 nobles who lost faith in their king. He was forced to hide in the watery marsh country,

01:30:57.600 mirroring stories of Robin Hood hiding in Sherwood Forest.

01:31:02.840 Though it did not feel like it at the time, the next part of Alfred's adventure was the sort that

01:31:07.660 inspires legends. Truly, Alfred was the first Robin Hood. With just his family and a few men

01:31:13.740 that remained loyal to him, Alfred hid in the woods and conducted small guerrilla warfare.

01:31:19.080 He used small raiding parties to pick off groups of Danes.

01:31:22.720 Those Anglo-Saxons who had deserted him also became targets of his attacks.

01:31:27.120 The headquarters of Alfred's new operation was a small island called Athelny.

01:31:31.620 It was two acres in area, surrounded by a river on one side and marshes and bogs on the other.

01:31:38.740 It was only approachable by boat and it was hidden from view.

01:31:42.100 It was a perfect hideout.

01:31:45.100 Again, according to Dr. Merkel,

01:31:47.400 Quote, nearly all the great legends for which Alfred is still remembered refer to these few

01:31:52.260 months as Alfred wandered the wilds of Wessex, figuring out how to retake his kingdom, end quote.

01:31:58.580 The most famous of these legends is the story of Alfred and the Cakes. According to the legend,

01:32:04.160 Alfred first arrived at Athelny alone and was scouting it out as a potential base.

01:32:09.140 Keeping his identity a secret, Alfred lodged at the home of a shepherd and his wife.

01:32:14.160 One day, Alfred was left to watch the cakes that the shepherd's wife was baking.

01:32:18.580 He became so lost in thought that he let the cakes burn into a crisp.

01:32:23.660 When the shepherd's wife returned to find her cakes burned,

01:32:26.820 she chastised Alfred for being lazy and taking advantage of her hospitality.

01:32:32.200 Alfred accepted the criticism and dutifully turned the cakes over.

01:32:35.920 This was a perfect example of the meekness of Alfred's character.

01:32:40.280 The king of England was mistaken for a poor yeoman and castigated for burning food,

01:32:45.340 and yet he humbly accepted the approach and changed his way.

01:32:49.000 During his stay at Athelny, Alfred had to reinvent himself as a man and as a king.

01:32:55.400 In his previous battles, he could never be faulted for his zeal and determination.

01:33:00.380 However, he now realized that he lacked cunning.

01:33:03.920 He had been outsmarted and outmaneuvered by Guthrum.

01:33:07.600 He now sought to be as wise as a serpent, but as innocent as a dove.

01:33:12.440 He stayed at Athelny because he could track Guthrum.

01:33:15.520 He could analyze his opponent's movements and favorite strategies.

01:33:20.000 From this secret hideout, Alfred studied Guthrum and truly learned from his mistakes.

01:33:25.440 Such traits are the marks of a superior man.

01:33:28.200 Alfred now successfully engaged in guerrilla tactics, something he wasn't previously accustomed to.

01:33:33.720 He used subterfuge and espionage and practiced moving his troops silently around Wessex.

01:33:39.720 After almost two years of hiding,

01:33:41.820 Alfred decided that the time was ripe to expel Guthrum from his kingdom once and for all.

01:33:47.020 In the late spring of 878 Anno Domini,

01:33:50.240 Alfred rode to Egbert Stone where he had mustered his remaining army

01:33:53.500 to make an assault on Chippenham, where Guthrum dwelt.

01:33:56.740 It was a force of 4,000 men,

01:33:59.040 all of whom were ready for a last gasp battle to save their home.

01:34:03.100 Previously, the church calendar had been used as a weapon against Alfred.

01:34:07.640 This time, he would use it to his advantage.

01:34:11.480 He chose to march from Egbert Stone to Chippenham on Whitsunday, or Pentecost, displaying his newfound cunning.

01:34:18.420 It was a move that Guthrum did not expect, as he assumed that Alfred and his soldiers would spend the day worshipping.

01:34:24.680 Guthrum hastily gathered his army and marched to Bratton Camp, a fortress ten miles from Chippenham, in order to cut off Alfred's advance.

01:34:34.100 Because of the stealth and speed Alfred had maintained,

01:34:37.680 Guthrum did not have time to fortify Bratton camp.

01:34:40.960 Alfred, his prayers said and his orders given, prepared for a decisive battle.

01:34:47.260 On the 5th of May, 878, the shield walls of the Anglo-Saxons and the Northmen met in a ferocious battle.

01:34:54.680 The hurled spears of both sides reportedly blocked out the sun as they fell in droves among their targets.

01:35:01.680 Many lay dead on the fields of Bratton camp.

01:35:04.460 Man after man collapsed dead in the Saxon shield wall,

01:35:07.880 but man after man arose to take his place.

01:35:11.780 Gothram had arrogantly chosen to face the Saxons in the field of battle

01:35:15.680 instead of inside the walls of Bratton camp, confident in his victory.

01:35:21.480 Now, he wasn't so sure.

01:35:24.300 Growing anxious and fearful, he sent out his best warriors, the Danish berserkers.

01:35:29.960 The drugged-up warriors ran naked toward the Saxon shield wall in a blood-boiling frenzy,

01:35:35.120 clanging their swords together with intoxicated fervor.

01:35:38.620 Such things had broken the Saxon's will before, but Alfred's stay in Athelmy had done him a favor.

01:35:44.860 Only those who were completely loyal to the king, and therefore courageous men, had stayed with him.

01:35:50.400 The Saxon shield wall remained unbroken.

01:35:53.780 Guthrum was now aware of his arrogant mistake.

01:35:56.640 The Viking shield wall began to crumble in disarray.

01:35:59.780 Coward after coward retreated from his place beside his brothers-in-arms.

01:36:04.000 The wall disintegrated under the brutal attacks and cries of the Saxons.

01:36:08.840 The Vikings turned in a full-fledged retreat, panic in their eyes.

01:36:12.780 They stumbled over one another in their haste to retreat,

01:36:15.880 dropping their heavy weapons as they did so.

01:36:18.280 Still, Guthrum thought to himself,

01:36:20.860 they've never pushed after our wall's broken.

01:36:23.040 Surely they will not change now.

01:36:24.400 but he was wrong. Alfred had changed. He would not repeat the mistake that cost his brother

01:36:30.740 his life at the Battle of Merton. The men of Wessex pressed the retreat, destroying all

01:36:36.140 Danes in their path. Almost all of the Danes were slaughtered as they raced in Bedlam for the hills.

01:36:41.960 Only Guthrum and a few of his commanders escaped, slinking back to Chippenham.

01:36:46.700 First the hunter, now the prey. The tides of war had changed, and they had changed for good.

01:36:53.480 Alfred, the great warrior, the great leader, and the great man, had taken back control of his

01:36:58.500 country. Never again would he bow before such godless men. He was truly the king now.

01:37:05.680 Guthrum was ousted from his hideout in Chippenham after two weeks of siege. What followed was the

01:37:11.520 most one-sided agreement ever signed by Danish people. In the treaty, Alfred took as many

01:37:16.800 hostages as he wished and gave none in return. Guthrum would leave Wessex with his remaining men

01:37:21.760 and never return. Here, Alfred chose to demonstrate his Christian mercy. The Danes had been nothing

01:37:29.780 but cruel and heartless to the West Saxons since their first invasion in 866, but Alfred was not

01:37:36.260 cruel and heartless. He promised Guthrum his freedom if, and only if, Guthrum would take the

01:37:42.780 Christian sacrament of baptism and that Alfred become Guthrum's godfather in the process.

01:37:48.880 Guthrum agreed.

01:37:50.740 Three weeks later, Alfred led Guthrum and his men to a small church in a town called Aller,

01:37:55.860 a short walk away from Athelny.

01:37:57.920 The church was merely a shack.

01:38:00.240 Wessex had impressive churches at the time.

01:38:03.220 Alfred could have tried to impress Guthrum with his Christianity

01:38:05.800 and shown him the earthly riches of his religion.

01:38:10.060 Instead, Alfred brought Guthrum to the lowliest, most humble, ramshackle church that Britain had to offer.

01:38:17.260 It was the very church Alfred had worshipped at during his stay in Athelmy,

01:38:20.920 the lowest point of his life.

01:38:22.920 Perhaps he wished to show Guthrum his humble origins.

01:38:26.220 Either way, he presented to Guthrum an honest depiction of Christianity.

01:38:30.460 It was, and is, a humble religion.

01:38:33.720 It was at this church that Guthrum was baptized.

01:38:36.720 The typical Catholic rituals were performed,

01:38:39.460 and then Guthrum was led to the baptismal.

01:38:41.920 The priest submerged him three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

01:38:47.340 On the third submersion, Alfred grabbed Guthrum by the shoulders and pulled him dripping from the water.

01:38:53.560 The two stood face to face.

01:38:55.740 Alfred, who had sponsored Guthrum's baptism, announced Guthrum as his godson and rechristened him Aethelstan,

01:39:02.860 now a member of the house of the king of Wessex.

01:39:05.680 By this action, Alfred forgave Guthrum for all the offenses he had perpetrated and welcomed him into fellowship,

01:39:12.440 disregarding the previous conflict between the two.

01:39:14.740 Alfred embraced Æthelstan as he would his own son. Æthelstan was then treated by Alfred to

01:39:21.340 twelve days of Saxon feasting, a period during which Alfred bestowed numerous gifts on his new

01:39:26.780 godson. After the feasting, Æthelstan returned to the conquered kingdom of East Anglia and began

01:39:34.520 his reign as king there. The question now was whether Æthelstan would hold to his new baptism.

01:39:42.580 The first test of his Christianity came just months in his reign over East Anglia.

01:39:47.920 A large Viking fleet had sailed to England and met with Aethelstan and asked for his permission

01:39:52.960 and aid in raiding and plundering Wessex.

01:39:56.380 When this was reported to Alfred, he prepared to meet his godson in battle yet again.

01:40:02.120 But Aethelstan surprised every West Saxon with his decision.

01:40:06.380 He vehemently told the Vikings no and sent them away empty-handed.

01:40:12.300 Next, Aethelstan pulled his armies away from the Wessex border.

01:40:16.160 Aethelstan and Alfred would never meet in combat again,

01:40:19.260 but remained on good terms for the rest of Aethelstan's life.

01:40:23.080 Modern historians tend to take the cynical view of Guthrum's baptism

01:40:26.880 and claim that it was nothing but a ruse.

01:40:29.720 However, nothing after the fallen Vikings' conversion

01:40:32.580 shows that he was anything other than a sincere Christian convert.

01:40:36.220 He regularly attended mass, made several peace treaties with Alfred,

01:40:40.420 and minted a coin in commemoration of St. Edmund,

01:40:43.840 a king of East Anglia who had been killed by Danes.

01:40:47.160 When he died in 890,

01:40:48.800 the Anglo-Saxon chronicle reported the death

01:40:51.100 of a Christian king named Aethelstan,

01:40:53.200 who was simply the godson of Alfred.

01:40:55.400 No comments were made about his previous life as a pagan.

01:40:59.680 Though the suspicions of the truth

01:41:01.180 concerning Guthrum's baptism

01:41:02.640 may never be entirely shaken,

01:41:05.160 he lived the life of a Christian after his baptism,

01:41:08.380 which is all the evidence needed to conclude

01:41:10.360 that he was indeed a true Christian.

01:41:16.960 Well, gentlemen, what a banger of a story.

01:41:19.240 First of all, the amazing things that happen in Alfred's life.

01:41:22.720 So many things to talk about.

01:41:24.320 But I was recently watching a movie.

01:41:27.840 Daniel, appreciate this.

01:41:29.320 You've recommended the book and I have yet to read it.

01:41:32.240 Nor have I.

01:41:32.960 Nor has Brian.

01:41:33.680 You haven't read it.

01:41:34.380 I haven't read Dune.

01:41:35.620 Oh, I gave it away just now.

01:41:36.780 But yeah, I haven't read it.

01:41:37.680 Even even Ben's wife was disappointed that I have not yet read the book that I was lent from the Garrett family.

01:41:44.040 Oh, no.

01:41:44.580 However, I did like a lazy American.

01:41:46.740 I did watch the movie.

01:41:48.280 OK, but there is a good scene in here.

01:41:50.600 Dan, you can verify if this actually happened to the book.

01:41:53.100 But Duke Leto says to his son, Paul, and I love this quote.

01:41:56.820 He says this.

01:41:57.780 A great man doesn't seek to lead.

01:41:59.740 He has called to it and he answers.

01:42:02.200 Now, Alfred certainly answered the call, and it was not at a great time for the glamorous work of head.

01:42:07.700 We see all of this, really, in the story that we just read.

01:42:13.140 So, Dan, just talk about answering the bell as a great man, what that requires, and what it requires stepping up to the plate to do for Alfred.

01:42:22.060 Well, you know, Eric, that's an excellent question, and I'm really glad you asked me, because I have a reference in mind.

01:42:27.140 Typically, I don't know, you guys don't know this about me, but it has become my goal to

01:42:33.220 not use Lord of the Rings references ever for sermons.

01:42:39.840 You're a contrarian at heart, so I know if it becomes popular enough that you will never

01:42:44.180 quote it again.

01:42:44.720 See, when somebody calls you a contrarian, you're really left in a pickle because if

01:42:49.580 I say, ah, I disagree, man, I'm getting razzed right now.

01:42:55.340 But no, to answer your question, it's actually really a pivotal scene in Lord of the Rings when Frodo says that he wishes that he didn't live to see such times, you know, and Gandalf says, we don't get to choose the times we were born in.

01:43:12.460 We just have to use the time we've been given the best we can.

01:43:16.320 And so I think that does that that scene.

01:43:19.960 And so me using Lord of the Rings right now, it was such a good reference.

01:43:24.140 it is yeah i wish i had thought of it and eric hadn't written it in the notes first of all

01:43:28.340 he really forced her hand there but but here's no no here's here's the thing so uh you know

01:43:34.620 so many times i'm gonna backtrack a little bit one of the things that i think is a problem

01:43:40.260 right now that uh is probably a generational thing but older men look at younger men and say

01:43:47.080 I wish that things weren't going to be so hard for you.

01:43:51.440 What a hard time to live.

01:43:53.860 I feel pity and sorrow for my generations, for the world that they're going to live in.

01:43:59.880 It's going to be so hard.

01:44:02.740 Whereas Gandalf is saying essentially to Frodo, this is a time for glory.

01:44:10.580 You don't get to choose when you live.

01:44:12.820 You don't get to choose the situation that you're put into.

01:44:15.300 but through providence god made you for a time such as this god made alfred for that time to

01:44:22.020 preserve his people through the judgment of the viking invasion yeah he brought a man like alfred

01:44:29.260 and put him in that time and through the hardship and all of the situations and alfred ended up

01:44:35.260 fanning into flame what became one of the greatest kingdoms that the world has ever seen and some of

01:44:44.060 the high point to this story for me in Alfred's story. The reason that once you understand his

01:44:50.240 story, you, you realize that the title, the great is, is apt. It's the correct title for him

01:44:56.160 because there are many men whom history calls great, who did one thing well, or who stood in

01:45:01.700 one key moment that really was a really important, a pivotal moment in history for what I love about

01:45:06.860 Alfred is that he did do that. He did stand up and he rose to the occasion and he put himself,

01:45:13.680 He put it all on the line, but he did it again and again.

01:45:16.180 And he learned from his mistakes.

01:45:18.560 He over and over, he looked back and he was like, wow, we didn't press that attack.

01:45:23.320 And look what happened.

01:45:24.560 Oh, wow.

01:45:24.900 We painted the gate.

01:45:25.780 We paid the Dane Gelt and look what happened.

01:45:28.360 Oh, and he did this over and over.

01:45:29.980 He humbly looked even the story of the cakes.

01:45:32.880 Alfred was a man who knew how to lead, but he also knew how to repent.

01:45:36.820 He also knew how to learn.

01:45:38.280 He knew how to humbly assess his own past failures.

01:45:43.140 Yeah.

01:45:43.680 And, and, and adjust his own tactics and the key, the crowning part of the story, Eric

01:45:49.260 will probably edit it out.

01:45:50.380 But when he's baptizing Guthrum at that point in the story, I'm like, hold him down, bro.

01:45:55.320 Drown that rat.

01:45:56.400 Like by the time you get to that point in the story, as you read Dr. Merkel's book,

01:46:00.480 you hate Guthrum.

01:46:01.860 No, I, when I was reading the book and I got to the point where he was like convert to

01:46:05.460 Christianity or die, I'm like, oh, this is where he like cuts his head off.

01:46:09.320 And, uh, and then he, he's like, okay, I'll submit.

01:46:11.780 And I'm like, Alfred, you are an idiot.

01:46:15.020 What are you thinking?

01:46:15.720 How many times have they sworn on their gods and your God and then broken their word?

01:46:21.380 These people are snakes.

01:46:22.980 What a doofus.

01:46:24.740 But then he actually sticks with it.

01:46:26.600 Then he does.

01:46:27.240 And Athelstan, as we must now call him, he is Guthrum hath died and Athelstan hath arisen

01:46:33.760 from the baptismal waters.

01:46:35.980 We got to say, he's a brother.

01:46:38.220 You are going to see Athelstan.

01:46:39.520 I'm convinced.

01:46:40.060 you're going to see this man in the kingdom and it was because of the wisdom of the mercy

01:46:46.220 uh the wisdom of the mercy of alfred it makes me think of another moment that because i i suppose

01:46:52.600 it's gotta be awesome right yeah gandalf and calm i'm like i'm with frodo i'm like kill that

01:46:57.360 that sneaking rat slinker slinker stinker and and then you see the true greatness of frodo and of

01:47:07.440 You know, and I like to think that Tolkien is obviously steeped in the northerness and in English history.

01:47:15.260 And he knows Alfred and other men like him, the true glory of Christian forgiveness and mercy and how it shines brightly in this exact kind of setting.

01:47:25.080 We're like, do we really believe that Christ can actually take an enemy of Paul holding the coats while they stone Stephen and make him into one of the greatest slaves of Christ?

01:47:35.020 Yeah. Well, it's also, I just think as, uh, especially for men, but there's so many times

01:47:39.900 where we're, we're called to do something, you know, maybe you're, you're, I remember times

01:47:44.840 when like your assistant manager, store manager gets fired and they're like, you're going to be

01:47:48.920 the store manager. And you're like, uh, I actually have no idea. I was about to ask, how do I log

01:47:55.140 into the cost of the employee portal again? I lost my password, but anyway, what was that?

01:47:59.680 Yeah, exactly. But you just have to step up. You have to rise to the occasion. You have to adapt,

01:48:04.200 improvise, overcome. So many moments like that. Moses has this moment. I think if you're pastoring

01:48:11.220 and, you know, we've been called to such a weighty and a heavy role to bear the burdens

01:48:17.100 of the people on our heart, all those things, there's moments where you feel heinously inadequate

01:48:22.200 for the task. And yet I think, you know, this model of just God gave you the task,

01:48:27.220 rise to the occasion, do your duty. That's it. One of the things that Alfred does learn from

01:48:33.360 is about paying the Dane Guild.

01:48:36.100 Yeah.

01:48:36.820 This is, I would equate this to things like you mentioned DEI.

01:48:41.760 Yeah.

01:48:42.120 But, well, I'll just give them a little bread.

01:48:44.180 You know, you watch all football teams now.

01:48:46.300 It's like every football team in the NFL has a chief diversity officer.

01:48:51.220 It's usually like a black female.

01:48:53.180 To make sure there's enough white men, right?

01:48:55.100 Yeah.

01:48:56.480 Well, exactly.

01:48:59.120 Right?

01:48:59.340 You're like, wait, you're telling me you're in a sport, which is like 90% like, come on.

01:49:05.480 I don't think we've been worried.

01:49:07.500 Oh, there's not enough female linemen.

01:49:09.260 That's the real problem.

01:49:10.520 Yes.

01:49:11.080 Yeah, we need more female linemen.

01:49:13.660 There's actually none.

01:49:14.960 So I want to ask you guys kind of, you know.

01:49:17.800 I just thought of the first kick that that woman did.

01:49:20.920 Oh, yeah.

01:49:21.680 They did.

01:49:22.640 They had a woman kick.

01:49:23.580 Wasn't it in the NFL?

01:49:24.780 It was college.

01:49:25.200 Or was it college?

01:49:26.080 Okay, and she kicks the ball.

01:49:27.060 And then we're like, she lines up to kick off.

01:49:29.420 I just want to put the Mexican guy who's just cackling and then talking in Spanish video

01:49:34.660 of me right now.

01:49:35.540 Because that's in my soul right now when I think of that video.

01:49:38.000 Well, we do have a, you know.

01:49:41.920 And it went like eight feet.

01:49:44.840 I'm sorry.

01:49:45.440 Even the announcer, though, he was like, oh, boy.

01:49:49.100 Oh, boy.

01:49:49.720 That's a really gay example.

01:49:51.880 Ping the Dane Gald.

01:49:53.280 Yeah.

01:49:53.740 No, seriously.

01:49:54.880 Nobody was like, yeah, she's much better than all the other kickers that we could put on

01:49:58.520 the field.

01:49:59.760 Absolutely.

01:50:00.340 They're paying the Dane geld.

01:50:01.520 Yeah.

01:50:01.860 They're paying the Dane geld.

01:50:02.720 The Dane's are like, no, we're going to kill you and enslave your women and children.

01:50:07.080 You know, if you don't pay us.

01:50:08.380 They're paying the D, the D.E.I.

01:50:10.060 Guild.

01:50:10.560 Oh, man.

01:50:11.260 How effeminate are leaders today to where they're like, you know what?

01:50:15.180 We should give in to the gays and the trannies.

01:50:17.580 The gay geld.

01:50:18.200 And white women.

01:50:19.520 That's who we should give in to.

01:50:20.900 Anyway.

01:50:21.300 I think a lot about it, like COVID was obviously a really good example with masks and vaccines and other things.

01:50:27.380 We really did see this where it was like, if you give in to the bullies, do they go away?

01:50:32.120 Yeah.

01:50:32.580 No.

01:50:33.020 No.

01:50:33.740 The only way to tell the COVID people to go away.

01:50:36.460 I saw this video the other day.

01:50:38.400 It was an Irishman.

01:50:40.140 And these people came to his door and they were from the city.

01:50:43.640 And they were like, we're here to inspect.

01:50:45.580 You have a dog.

01:50:46.240 We need to check your dog license.

01:50:48.620 The guy was like, are you joking?

01:50:50.060 and they were like uh no we need to check your dog license he's like go away stop wasting people's

01:50:55.680 time and money go get a real job and he just refused to let them in he refused to give in

01:50:59.960 and they eventually were like well i guess we'll leave but like that's the attitude you have to

01:51:04.740 have when people are trying to exact this toll from you yeah uh can you think of any other

01:51:09.660 examples in our culture or society when it is i don't even know what that look mean yeah one of

01:51:16.700 my favorite reasons you know recent examples is you know javier mille mille yeah the argentine

01:51:22.220 president or we're talking about his jewish prayer wall right like he gets in power and he's just

01:51:27.480 like we're gonna we're gonna you know he's going through the government everything you'd want like

01:51:31.840 he's getting rid of the department of this and the department of that and the bureaucracy for

01:51:35.300 gay turtles and he's getting rid of all the like he's just waving his wacky crazy hair around and

01:51:40.520 yelling in a language i don't understand and i'm like that is the fascist energy that i need right

01:51:44.920 there like bring it to america tomorrow oh like christo fascism christian nationalism is not far

01:51:51.360 enough we need christo fascism okay you're a nasty person okay but then here's the thing

01:51:58.200 here's the thing that's enough christenem's fine it's the same picture corporate needs to see the

01:52:05.960 difference okay but here's the thing argentine president javier mille what what do i see when

01:52:13.020 i turn on the news next next minute the dude's weeping at the western wall in israel with the

01:52:18.340 little hat on and he's just you know standing there like this this shame ritual that every

01:52:24.260 western leader in the entire world has to go through apparently you're not supposed to notice

01:52:28.560 brian no notice what i was going to say that's such a i'm glad to see all of the uh you know

01:52:33.860 the support that we have for various communities and what are some other buzzwords that i could

01:52:38.360 use how can how else can you pay the day well that's a dame girl it's a day what i wanted i

01:52:43.500 wanted to see was when he started weeping at the wall and somebody steps out and says sir this is

01:52:47.580 a wendy's yeah like i just look at it i go like javier he's not jewish he doesn't believe in this

01:52:53.960 you can give a million examples like this where the dane geld is often a humiliation ritual

01:52:59.240 that is meant to emasculate you and demonstrate we won you work for me that's what the day it's

01:53:06.980 It's like a it's like a bully pushing your face towards the dog.

01:53:09.820 The gay guilt.

01:53:10.600 It's why you don't wear the mask.

01:53:12.500 You don't live in the pod.

01:53:13.660 You don't eat the bug.

01:53:14.940 You don't put the you know, the little thing in your email memo.

01:53:18.840 You do the heat, your pronouns.

01:53:20.640 You know, you don't see more Alex Jones.

01:53:25.040 You have to go full like demons.

01:53:27.980 And yeah, they're they're literal pot belly goblin demons.

01:53:33.380 You know what I'm saying?

01:53:34.400 I'm like, they'll stab your daughter at the mall, okay?

01:53:38.960 They'll stab your wife, your son.

01:53:41.560 But they absolutely will.

01:53:43.220 And every time that you give in to the Dane Geld, what you know is that you've just started a clock until the next bigger demand comes.

01:53:51.600 Yeah.

01:53:51.820 And the next demand is going to be your cojones.

01:53:53.960 And the demand after that is going to be your family.

01:53:56.360 And the demand after that is going to be your civilization and your faith.

01:54:00.000 You'd never pay—better to die.

01:54:01.260 Like, this is why my guy, Ben Garrett, is one of my heroes, because he's actually in the room, takes his headphones off so he can actually listen.

01:54:13.000 This guy, this guy, Ben, the stones on this guy, engineer with the government, and they're like, wear the mask.

01:54:20.700 It will help with the COVID thing.

01:54:22.580 Wear the mask, whatever.

01:54:23.680 And Ben went, LOL, no.

01:54:26.340 and then he just cheerfully went about his business

01:54:29.080 until they were basically like

01:54:30.520 sir you should probably seek another line

01:54:33.200 of work

01:54:33.600 and he was like yeah look I went

01:54:37.040 to college for years to learn this entire

01:54:39.180 industry and have a good paying job

01:54:41.220 that's secure but I'm not going

01:54:43.080 to pay the flippin

01:54:45.140 Dane geld, face geld

01:54:46.740 and wear your mask

01:54:48.500 and that was that and I just think

01:54:50.940 like if 5%

01:54:52.180 of spineless government

01:54:55.000 employees had done that

01:54:56.160 would have been over that day and gell would have failed it doesn't take 50 it takes five or 10

01:55:01.740 yeah so this rant i'm i can't even remember where we are in the episode but

01:55:05.880 i think i'm done i think i'm done you you wrapped it up i'm done dan you're a dane

01:55:11.000 yeah what of it do you have any favorite dane guilds you like to pay or receive

01:55:17.940 i mean i have to be like somewhat tolerable around you guys but i seem to just get more

01:55:27.460 of you so i don't know maybe i should stop paying that don't pay do you have any favorite in the

01:55:33.380 culture that you like to aim your viking spears at and destroy any any dane geld you want to take

01:55:41.940 down i i'm gonna throw out a dane geld while dan's thinking and putting his head against the

01:55:46.520 microphone uh for those in case you missed it uh but i think joe rigney was right on this one one

01:55:52.260 of the danegelds that's often paid in the church is submission to female leaders yes who aren't

01:55:57.500 leaders but elders wives and female modes of communication feminism and giving into those

01:56:02.360 sorts of things and what i found in the church is when you give into a tyrannical woman maybe

01:56:06.700 she's in your marriage when you give into her you net the the danegeld is never leaving like

01:56:12.820 the feminism is never leaving hr karen lady it's over hr karen lady uh dan we were talking about

01:56:18.560 it with lonesome dove and july johnson on the hard men podcast but it's like this guy who's a sheriff

01:56:23.760 but can't speak up to his wife like he is paying a dane guild yep uh to his wife so i think a lot

01:56:28.540 of spaces uh particularly christian leaders uh when matt chandler wears the pink cat sweaters

01:56:35.420 with his lady office people and his wife he's paying a dane guild that's exactly what he's

01:56:41.220 doing it's to feminism and i think that because so much of the evangelical establishment like

01:56:46.620 their customer is women because they built a product around those women they sell the product

01:56:51.080 to those women now those women have the control right and so i think also what's needed is a lot

01:56:57.320 of courageous pastors who say you know as brian has been doing uh on his i don't know 97 part

01:57:03.700 series on biblical households and women it's gonna be more like 99 all i remember was women

01:57:10.740 Women are bad, too.

01:57:11.760 Women are bad.

01:57:12.680 Hey, the two is important.

01:57:15.340 But we did men first.

01:57:17.100 How many times in our culture will the church actually address women's sins?

01:57:22.760 Yeah, very rarely.

01:57:23.720 So that's a way to not pay the Dane Guild.

01:57:26.240 Because the cost is often you're done.

01:57:30.200 You're done.

01:57:31.100 You don't have a job.

01:57:31.840 You will lose your job.

01:57:33.120 That's why it's really important in this age for pastors to be.

01:57:37.040 Again, we talked about fighting battles.

01:57:39.320 you are actually could you could lose but you have to fight those battles yeah and especially

01:57:45.480 because it's probably not worth staying no in a state of tyranny no it's like do you want to be

01:57:51.000 the vassal boy of the enemies no you don't want to be their puppet like alfred probably could have

01:57:59.760 worked out some deal where he stayed somewhere like at least for a minute with some vestige of

01:58:05.220 power and given his kingdom over he could have just gone to france yeah he could just left you

01:58:09.020 know but he didn't alfred was like no i will i would rather die than do that again yeah it's

01:58:16.780 really helpful uh final thoughts guys as we close down uh kind of this you know it's interesting

01:58:22.600 because you have like jay henty you have the robin hood story the william wallace story in

01:58:26.760 english history they all kind of sound very similar um as we kind of wrap things up here

01:58:31.840 what primary lessons do you think can be learned from particularly what he did in that time period

01:58:38.560 Yeah.

01:58:38.780 He's reinventing himself.

01:58:40.020 He's kind of retreating.

01:58:41.120 Yeah.

01:58:41.540 Yeah.

01:58:41.740 He's going back to a location.

01:58:44.660 But interestingly enough, it's not full retreatism.

01:58:47.560 No, no, because full retreatism in our day, especially looks like embracing the enemy's

01:58:53.180 platform.

01:58:54.380 Like our version of retreat, actually today, full loss is joining the other team.

01:58:59.980 It's not just like fighting a last stand and dying.

01:59:02.700 It's joining the other team.

01:59:04.040 So one of the things that we absolutely do have to learn that Alfred learned was this idea of cunning

01:59:11.300 That he needed to learn how to be a shrewder operator than he was

01:59:15.620 He was being foolish in the way that he was relating to the enemy

01:59:18.640 He was expecting them to act honorably according to the given rules of warfare

01:59:23.240 You just have to realize in his age and in today's age that our enemies they will do anything

01:59:28.840 There's no low they won't stoop to there's no vow they won't break

01:59:32.780 There is no social more. They will not trample underfoot. There's nothing. They will do literally anything to maintain power. They will gladly kill you and your children. They would gladly give your entire nation away. They would do anything to have the power that they want.

01:59:52.120 So you have to understand what Alfred learned is tactics, cunning.

01:59:57.080 And Jesus lamented this, that the sons of this age are more shrewd, more cunning than the sons of light.

02:00:03.600 And that was a lament.

02:00:04.800 That wasn't a good thing.

02:00:06.120 They needed to learn how to have true piety, true righteousness without being fools who are easily played, patsies, idiots.

02:00:16.540 They needed to learn cunning.

02:00:18.020 And so I think that that's a really important point to take from Alfred.

02:00:21.720 is this concept of cunning.

02:00:25.600 Yeah, so in addition to that,

02:00:26.960 the whole reason that Alfred had to retreat into the swamp

02:00:30.940 was because some of his noblemen betrayed him.

02:00:35.020 They sold him out.

02:00:36.880 And so I think one of the lessons that is really important to learn

02:00:40.320 is that it's quite obvious in this story and in our story who the enemy is.

02:00:46.320 They have pink hair, their status,

02:00:48.420 they're trying to make you do stuff you don't want to do,

02:00:50.120 put things in your body you don't want to put there you know make you comply yes brian yes

02:00:55.200 uh make you comply with whatever gay laws that they you know that they're shoving down your

02:01:00.140 throat um but or other places but the thing that's actually really difficult to see

02:01:07.740 are the people inside the camp that would sell you out yeah go for it yeah yeah i mean i i and i

02:01:17.780 think what's so hard is sort of the naming names and there's guys in the middle right where you're

02:01:22.300 like I hope they do well I hope that maybe they turn but you'll watch trajectories of guys like

02:01:28.500 a Kevin DeYoung and you're like yeah it'd be really cool if you stop taking shots at all the

02:01:32.880 right people and you you haven't really seen courage on the right battlefronts but I think

02:01:39.220 it is helpful when you have these exiles like David did in his life that's when he goes to the

02:01:45.740 cave of a dulem that's when he gathers his 300 and and realizing i don't need 10 000 weak-willed men

02:01:53.720 i need 300 or three or four or five i need a handful of hard men who are going to be faithful

02:02:00.520 and courageous and there's zero i mean we're talking zero uh idea that they would betray you

02:02:07.720 yeah right having that close-knit circle of men that's going to be so much more pivotal

02:02:12.920 in terms of the economies of trust and leadership and tribe it would be better to have a small tribe

02:02:19.720 of guys that trust you and you trust them yeah i agree with that and i think that's definitely

02:02:24.000 true one of the things that i would want to warn people uh against is blind trust from people that

02:02:30.220 are actually in that camp so you look at a guy like kevin in the like close knit tight you know

02:02:37.160 okay camp because you look at a kevin de young and does it really surprise you that when he like

02:02:42.020 punches, right? Like he was on the, on the fringe anyway, you know, or an Alistair bag. He's not

02:02:47.960 like a big Christian nationalism or Christendom proponent, you know, but I, I just, I want people

02:02:54.880 to be prepared for the eventuality that someone that you really trust, not that I know anything,

02:03:03.160 This sounds really ominous, but men are sinful and, um, and there is at some point going to be

02:03:13.260 someone that you probably trust that will betray you. It's a, it's an inevitability. It happens.

02:03:20.180 It's happened over and over here. You know, we've had some of our biggest lessons learned

02:03:26.340 in terms of leading through reform,

02:03:29.060 especially Dan and I over the years,

02:03:31.520 they've almost never been from outside.

02:03:34.780 No, no.

02:03:35.340 In fact, virtually always been.

02:03:37.760 Will you say that again for the people in the back?

02:03:39.400 I think that's really, really important.

02:03:41.100 They've almost never been from outside.

02:03:42.440 It's almost always been people from inside the camp

02:03:46.580 that you go, you start to drift in different directions

02:03:51.100 and you think like, well, they're on my team.

02:03:53.940 Like we don't agree about that, but they're on my team.

02:03:55.820 And the next thing you know, it's like, you feel the knife enter your, your back.

02:03:59.500 And it's not just like a disagreement.

02:04:01.460 It's like, I will destroy you.

02:04:03.160 Yeah.

02:04:03.680 Yeah.

02:04:03.980 And the thing is like, you expect a battle from Guthrum, right?

02:04:07.660 From the Vikings.

02:04:08.460 He's a Dane.

02:04:08.900 Like when he, when he kills people, it's, it's, it's not the same as one of your friends

02:04:13.560 who will take the heart of you.

02:04:15.800 Yes.

02:04:16.300 You know, if they could.

02:04:17.340 Yeah.

02:04:17.580 And so I think that's just something that, and this is my main point.

02:04:22.040 Don't put your hope in men.

02:04:24.400 Right.

02:04:24.760 Even if you get that courageous leader who's leading from the front and he's fighting the

02:04:29.260 battle, if he is the whole reason that you, you know, are fighting, then you've lost because

02:04:36.180 as soon as he falls, as soon as he betrays you, you'll lose heart.

02:04:40.480 It's important to keep the principles in mind.

02:04:42.700 Yeah.

02:04:43.100 It's important to keep God's promises in mind.

02:04:46.100 And, and, and so I, I just don't want anybody to lose heart if, when, if, and when someone

02:04:51.980 fails them.

02:04:52.740 Yeah, because it's going to happen in your your small circles.

02:04:55.220 It's certainly going to happen on all the levels.

02:04:57.640 What's interesting, too, because somebody like Alfred, if you read his biography, then you find out that he really was successful because he had sons who followed him and carried on his legacy and really men and people from the Witten and all sorts of people that he trained.

02:05:12.860 It was a strong team is my point.

02:05:15.000 And I think part of the warning that I would give to people, too, is most people don't have a tribe, first of all.

02:05:22.740 And second, they think that somebody they're following online is their tribe.

02:05:27.000 And it's like, OK, that can be OK-ish if it leads you to actually finding a real tribe in a real place with real people.

02:05:36.320 But making sure people aren't just like cosplay LARPing.

02:05:40.820 And then and then I think also just saying, like, part of the strength we've found here is it's not all dependent on Dan.

02:05:47.420 I mean, as good looking as he is, not everything.

02:05:50.800 no one has ever said that to me i am going to remember this moment the rest of my life of my

02:05:55.960 even though you were mocking me i take it as an excuse not to hear any sarcasm choose to hear

02:06:01.620 choose you want to hear hear what you want that's right actually so uh back to the the vows and the

02:06:08.140 betrayal i can't help but think that alfred's retreat into the swamp as strategic as it appears

02:06:13.440 um was partly because of the pain of betrayal so you have to you have to understand his elder men

02:06:21.500 his leaders they would meet at his table in a hall he didn't have a throne he sat at a at a table

02:06:28.620 uh with his men with his elder men his other leaders and he would give them gifts they would

02:06:34.840 exchange gifts uh he would give them a lot of wealth but the most potent gift that he would

02:06:40.720 give to his men were rings this is where uh tolkien gets the the ring you know in sauron

02:06:47.920 he's giving hands yeah the rings for the dwarves yeah i want a ring yeah and so maybe one ring to

02:06:54.200 rule them all these were alfred's ring bearers yeah in exchange they gave him vows these were

02:07:01.340 the men that were actually closest with alfred so anyway just keep that in mind uh as you go forward

02:07:07.700 because Alfred didn't lose heart. He didn't lose his eye for the vision that the English people,

02:07:16.380 what would soon be the English people, the Saxon people who were under the blood of Christ,

02:07:22.180 covered by the blood of Christ, would defeat the pagan nations and he would not abandon them

02:07:27.600 to the pagan Vikings and their brutal sacrifice, their sexual immorality, all of the horrors that

02:07:34.880 they brought with them. And he did not lose heart, but he, he, he fought, he assembled men and one

02:07:43.020 men to his cause and, uh, and eventually won. So that's the thing I want people to remember

02:07:48.780 is that it's the principles of the fight, not the man. Absolutely. Love it. Well, as we wrap

02:07:55.200 things up, I do want to make a quick plug for again, the day was fault. That is our patron

02:07:59.280 exclusive show. We're going to have a lot more coverage on Alfred. There is Dan a lot more to

02:08:04.760 his story that is maybe even more pivotal than anything we've talked about here yes so we want

02:08:09.200 to encourage you to check that out we'll talk about a number of things alfred did a lot he

02:08:13.480 changed educational policy monetary policy government policy and a whole lot more but

02:08:19.080 maybe the most pivotal of all he was all about building christian boroughs christian towns we're

02:08:25.780 gonna have a conference on that we're gonna talk more about it in the deus vault so be sure to sign

02:08:30.140 up on patreon for as little as five dollars a month you can get access to early episodes ad

02:08:36.660 free and then special content like the deus vault brian i am going to turn things over to you for

02:08:44.660 the charge and benediction for our dearest of all listeners i've got you you've got you well

02:08:52.220 listeners you know there are many lessons that we could take from the story of alfred and i think

02:08:57.980 everybody's going to need to take different ones. But the one that will allow you to do that most

02:09:02.920 effectively, not just with Alfred, but with any of the stories that we tell you from the first

02:09:07.720 Christendom is the humility that Alfred had to look through his own life and to see his own

02:09:14.660 mistakes and to truly turn from and learn from those mistakes. Be men who are humble and courageous,

02:09:21.160 Right. Be men who have true piety, but also boldness. Be men who are willing to fight the right battles and even to fight those battles if it looks like you're going to lose.

02:09:32.060 Because in every life that's lived faithfully to Christ, there are likely going to be battles like that.

02:09:38.080 You're going to have to stand down and say, you know, one out of five, I make it through this the way that I'd like to.

02:09:44.060 And I'm going to fight nonetheless. Be a man like Theoden, who said, no, we do not have a hope of victory.

02:09:51.160 but we will meet them in battle nonetheless.

02:09:54.080 That final reference was especially for Dan

02:09:56.400 in his benefit in The Lord of the Rings.

02:09:59.600 And also Han Solo.

02:10:01.040 Never tell me the odds.

02:10:02.280 One of Brian's favorites.

02:10:03.780 That's right.

02:10:04.300 Oh, Star Wars is dumb.

02:10:06.540 I love Lord of the Rings.

02:10:07.760 Let's just let the record show.

02:10:09.160 I just try not to be cliched.

02:10:10.780 Continue.

02:10:11.640 Anyway, have that humble courage,

02:10:15.360 have righteous faith, and go out.

02:10:18.560 And the thing is, at the end of the day,

02:10:20.260 what we have to remember is that the Lord is on our side.

02:10:22.800 The Lord is on our side, whether we stand alone or whether we stand in the multitude.

02:10:26.560 And so don't be the man that flees the shield wall.

02:10:28.860 Keep your shield up firm and fight the good fight of the faith.

02:10:31.880 We'll see you next time in the King's Hall.

02:10:41.180 Well, in case you didn't know, we have another King's Hall show called The After Hours,

02:10:44.940 and it's available only to our patrons.

02:10:47.620 We have a great time in the after hours.

02:10:49.080 i play hype songs which brian loves sometimes we even talk about brian's cut we talk about recent

02:10:53.660 news on x and answer listener questions overall it's a great time so i'd encourage you to head

02:10:58.480 over to patreon.com slash the king's hall if you'd like to support the show and get some extra content

The King's Hall - February 09, 2024

King Alfred the Great and the Rise of England

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