The King's Hall - No More Brother Wars

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Brian here with a big announcement from New Christendom Press.

00:00:03.860 Possibly our most important book yet is now available for pre-order.

00:00:08.300 It's called The Longhouse, How Feminism Conquered the West and Made Us All Miserable.

00:00:13.400 And in it, Eric and I take you through the dark history of feminism,

00:00:17.240 what it's done to everything from politics to church life to the economy,

00:00:21.220 and what to do about it.

00:00:23.040 Pre-order it today at newchristendompress.com slash longhouse.

00:00:26.600 And as a thank you for pre-ordering, you'll get 10% off automatically.

00:00:30.900 We'll also be signing the first 1,000 copies, so pick yours up today.

00:00:40.600 This episode of the King's Hall Podcast is brought to you by Backwards Planning Financial,

00:00:45.320 Alpine Gold, Max D Trailers, Salt and Strings Butchery, Reformation Heritage Books,

00:00:50.600 Premier Body Armor, and by our supporters at patreon.com.

00:00:56.600 and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against his brother Abel

00:01:17.680 and slew him. Genesis 4.8. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian

00:01:24.860 throne. On June 28, 1914, while visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he and his

00:01:33.000 wife Sophie were targeted by a group of young Bosnian Serb nationalists known as the Black Hand.

00:01:39.340 They sought to undermine Austro-Hungarian rule and promote the idea of a greater Serbia.

00:01:45.180 Initially, an assassination attempt failed when a bomb thrown at their motorcade missed and injured

00:01:50.660 others instead. However, later that day, as the couple's car took a wrong turn, they encountered

00:01:56.600 Gavrilo Princip, one of the conspirators. He fired two shots, killing both Franz and his wife.

00:02:03.580 The assassination itself remains shrouded in mystery. As one historian wrote, quote,

00:02:09.380 one of the most controversial issues of modern history arises from this question.

00:02:14.520 What were the assassin's motives? And who were his instigators, if any, and his accomplices?

00:02:20.640 Sir Edward Gray, British Foreign Secretary in 1914,

00:02:24.600 described the crime as the perfect political murder

00:02:27.560 in the sense that it would be impossible

00:02:29.560 for the truth ever to be established, end quote.

00:02:32.860 Regardless of motive or who was actually behind it,

00:02:35.780 the assassination set off a chain reaction in Europe

00:02:38.840 that has left historians puzzled to this day.

00:02:42.160 What happened in the aftermath, however, is more certain.

00:02:45.720 Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany,

00:02:47.940 issued an ultimatum to Serbia where nationalist sentiments were brewing. Serbia's response was

00:02:54.460 seen as insufficient, leading Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia on July 28th of 1914.

00:03:01.560 The conflict could have been squashed at any number of points, but instead it quickly escalated

00:03:07.480 into absolute chaos. Russia mobilized to support Serbia, and as a result, Germany would declare war

00:03:14.400 on Russia. France, allied with Russia, became involved. And when Germany invaded Belgium to

00:03:20.100 reach France, Britain declared war on Germany. What began as a localized conflict rapidly

00:03:26.340 transformed into a global war involving many of the world's great powers. It would start a chain

00:03:32.760 of events that ultimately dealt a potentially mortal blow to Western civilization, one that

00:03:38.880 we're still dealing with in the 21st century. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was more than

00:03:44.420 just the spark. It revealed the intricate web of alliances, nationalistic fervor, and political

00:03:50.720 tensions simmering in Europe. The result was a devastating conflict that lasted from 1914 to

00:03:57.080 1918, reshaping the world in profound ways. Western civilization lay in ruins, and to this day,

00:04:04.160 many, including world-renowned historians, still don't fully understand how or why an entirely

00:04:11.240 preventable war took place at all. There's no doubt that the West devolved into rampant

00:04:17.400 secularization following the Second Great War of the 20th century, but it was not inevitable.

00:04:23.980 Before the rise of such totalitarian and destructive regimes took power, including

00:04:29.120 Leninism, Stalinism, Nazism, and fascism, there was a first great war. For good reason, historians

00:04:35.320 have referred to the 30-year period of war as the Great Civil War of the West. It was not a war

00:04:41.980 between Islam and Christianity, but a war within Christianity and among brothers that would prove 0.55

00:04:48.680 to rend the moral fabric of Western civilization. As Charles L. Mee wrote in his End of Order,

00:04:55.840 Versailles 1919, the magnitude of the Great War could not be overestimated. He wrote World War

00:05:02.660 I had been a tragedy on a dreadful scale. 65 million men were mobilized, more by many millions

00:05:09.360 than had ever been brought to war before. To fight a war, they had been told of justice and honor,

00:05:15.440 of national pride and of great ideals. To wage a war that would end all war, to establish an

00:05:21.780 entirely new order of peace and equity in the world. Me then detailed the Butcher's Bill.

00:05:28.320 By November 11th, 1918, when the armistice that marked the end of the war was signed,

00:05:33.560 8 million soldiers lay dead. 20 million more were wounded, diseased, mutilated, or spitting blood

00:05:41.120 from gas attacks. 22 million civilians had been killed or wounded, and the survivors were living

00:05:46.920 in villages blasted to splinters and rubble, on farms churned in mud, their cattle dead.

00:05:53.120 In Belgrade, Berlin, and Petrograd, the survivors fought among themselves. Fourteen wars,

00:05:59.600 great or small, civil or revolutionary, flickered or raged around the world. With the Christian 1.00

00:06:05.460 West in utter disrepair after World War I, men like Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini would rise to

00:06:11.480 power, setting the stage for another catastrophic war. In the aftermath, the British Empire would 0.64

00:06:17.480 effectively collapse, and with it, an era of Christian exploration and civilization building 0.84

00:06:23.000 came crashing to the ground. As Pat Buchanan wrote in Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War,

00:06:29.480 quote, when the 20th century opened, the West was everywhere supreme. For 400 years, explorers,

00:06:36.080 missionaries, conquerors, and colonizers departed Europe for the four corners of the earth to erect

00:06:41.260 empires that were to bring the blessings and benefits of Western civilization to all mankind.

00:06:46.880 Somewhere in the last century, Western man suffered a catastrophic loss of faith in himself,

00:06:54.060 in his civilization, and in the faith that gave it birth, end quote. What many fail to realize is

00:07:02.500 just how closely blood-related were the major monarchs of the key powers involved in the war.

00:07:09.660 Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and King George of the United Kingdom were first cousins.

00:07:14.720 George and Tsar Nicholas II were also first cousins, and Wilhelm and Nicholas were third cousins.

00:07:20.240 Though many, including Tsar Nicholas, sought to avert a dreadful war, they were ultimately unsuccessful.

00:07:26.520 And the results have been catastrophic for the enterprise of maintaining and fortifying the Christian West.

00:07:33.320 What lessons can be gleaned from this catastrophe today?

00:07:37.340 Among other things, the great civil war of the West is a sobering and tragic reminder

00:07:42.720 that bloodshed among brothers is one of the most destructive things to have happened in Christendom.

00:07:46.900 In fact, this type of division is a constant theme that we've covered in season three of the King's Hall podcast.

00:07:54.940 Christendom has often been undone, not because the barbarians overpowered Christendom,

00:08:00.340 but because of Judases within Western walls who first opened the gates to the enemy. 0.90

00:08:05.680 Christian infighting weakened Europe and made them easy prey to outside invaders. 0.70

00:08:11.580 On this front, example after example could be supplied,

00:08:15.440 from the internal fracturing of the Byzantine Empire and its effect at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071

00:08:21.680 to the fall of Edessa in 1144 and the role that conflict between the Christian ruler Jocelyn II

00:08:28.400 and other Christian crusader lords in Antioch and Jerusalem played in that debacle.

00:08:34.400 Or we could speak of the disunity between the Crusader states and the Western Christian leaders

00:08:39.760 and how this infighting destroyed any chance of success in the 1148 Siege of Damascus.

00:08:46.300 This failure, in turn, led to the rise of the powerful Muslim leader Saladin.

00:08:52.020 Time would fail to tell of the effects of Christian disunity at the Battle of Hattin, 0.96

00:08:56.020 the Fourth Crusade, and the fracturing of Eastern Christendom,

00:08:58.920 the fall of Acre in 1291, weakened by internal disputes,

00:09:02.740 and the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453

00:09:06.680 in the part the Hundred Years' War played in that ignominious fall.

00:09:11.340 The fact is plain. 0.66

00:09:14.080 Christian disunity, whether through political rivalries,

00:09:17.920 civil wars, or conflicting religious factions within the Christian household,

00:09:22.060 often played directly into the hands of Muslim forces

00:09:25.680 throughout the Middle Ages and even into the early modern period.

00:09:30.160 The inability of Christians to unite combined with internal strife 0.93

00:09:33.740 provided critical opportunities for Muslim powers to make significant advances. 0.99

00:09:40.000 These advances came with a cost paid in the blood of brothers.

00:09:44.320 Sadly, Christians in America today struggle to build coalitions,

00:09:48.840 giving way instead to constant bickering and infighting,

00:09:51.440 both in person and on digital fronts.

00:09:54.820 Any rebuilding of a new Christendom is rendered impossible

00:09:57.600 when brothers repeatedly and incessantly attack and seek to destroy one another.

00:10:03.280 If Rohan cannot stand next to Gondor in the battle line,

00:10:07.100 then the demise of the West is indeed inevitable.

00:10:09.880 At times, divisions can be helpful in clarifying,

00:10:13.640 as the great shamdemic of 2020 revealed.

00:10:16.220 It was an apocalyptic event or an unveiling that led many to take positive action. 0.92

00:10:22.060 For example, fault lines have formed in the culture and in the church 0.94

00:10:25.680 that have forced many Christians to wake up to the reality of the total state they were living

00:10:31.160 under. If the federal government could effectively end church services and shut down entire segments

00:10:36.960 of the economy because of a flu-like virus, what limits do its power actually exist?

00:10:43.120 As a result of this realization of government overreach, Christians moved across state lines,

00:10:49.260 vacated soft leftist churches, built parallel economies, and redirected their energies to

00:10:54.860 building local communities of resistance. Much of this reaction has proved a positive good.

00:11:00.760 But as much progress as there has been in the work of Christian balkanization and fortification, 0.71

00:11:06.220 there have also been new waves of infighting in an already cramped and crowded ghetto of

00:11:11.500 reformed Christianity. For example, Stephen Wolf's book, The Case for Christian Nationalism,

00:11:16.860 published by Canon Press, had a multidimensional impact. On the one hand, a large number of

00:11:22.460 Christians began rethinking the role of government in shaping Christian nations. 0.64

00:11:26.620 They've returned to the political writings of men like Calvin, Knox, and Rutherford.

00:11:32.040 Their reaction to Wolfe's book has been mostly positive, full of energy.

00:11:36.060 Others saw the book as a threat at many levels.

00:11:39.140 In turn, the discussion has turned into debate,

00:11:41.480 which has all too often devolved into destructive in-camp hostilities and name-calling.

00:11:48.560 Christians who agreed on 98% of doctrinal issues

00:11:51.700 have been all too willing to separate on political issues,

00:11:54.880 many of which are misunderstood or misrepresented

00:11:57.240 by folks on both sides of the aisle.

00:11:59.920 Anathemas are decreed on issues

00:12:01.860 not pertaining to matters of theological orthodoxy.

00:12:05.260 Men who shared close bonds of friendship on Monday morning

00:12:07.840 are sworn enemies by Tuesday afternoon.

00:12:11.620 Together, we stand at the precipice of an uncertain future. 0.90

00:12:16.980 Will the Christian West be slowly erased 1.00

00:12:19.600 by invading Muslim and third world immigrants 1.00

00:12:22.360 without a shot? 1.00

00:12:23.640 Will America be conquered?

00:12:25.920 Will its apostasy become complete 0.68

00:12:27.800 and its destruction assured? 0.99

00:12:30.560 Like I said, we're at a precipice of uncertainty.

00:12:34.120 But one thing is certain.

00:12:36.020 Ours will be a future of misery and death 1.00

00:12:38.580 if the Christian church cannot contend for unity, 0.99

00:12:40.920 if the Christian church cannot stand together.

00:12:44.140 I'm not talking here about a false unity

00:12:46.680 of pretended agreement on every issue

00:12:49.060 all the way down the line.

00:12:50.460 I'm not talking about a false unity

00:12:52.180 of pretended agreement on political theory,

00:12:54.460 strategy, history, doctrine,

00:12:55.740 and everything else out to the 10th decimal point.

00:12:59.040 I'm not talking about a unity

00:13:00.580 where the theonomists and the classical two kingdoms folks

00:13:03.920 decide to flip a coin,

00:13:05.760 heads were all theonomists, tails two kingdoms.

00:13:08.640 Our unity is not the false unity of forced homogeneity.

00:13:13.460 I'm talking about a true unity.

00:13:16.680 In fact, the true unity we already have.

00:13:19.220 The unity of the shared blood which covers us.

00:13:23.160 A unity of the same scriptures and same gospel.

00:13:26.640 A unity of one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

00:13:30.320 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

00:13:34.140 A unity of a shared citizenship in the royal nation of Christ's cosmic kingdom.

00:13:40.240 We Christians have too often contented ourselves with fighting fights that cost little.

00:13:46.100 Simulated brother wars that come with little real danger, but do much to divide us from

00:13:50.900 one another.

00:13:52.000 In contrast, our enemy is united against the kingdom of God.

00:13:56.120 They're united, in fact, against functional civilization at all.

00:14:00.640 Everything is at stake here, from a parent's right to refuse the mutilation of their child,

00:14:05.920 in service of mental illness with a marketing team

00:14:08.920 and all the power of an internet meme 0.57

00:14:10.720 to the continued existence of Americans as a people at all.

00:14:14.780 They are united in the cause of death. 0.58

00:14:17.140 They're united in the cause of chaos.

00:14:19.280 The enemy, with all the swagger and sneering cynicism of evil,

00:14:23.900 lusts after your very children's souls.

00:14:26.840 The enemy will pour out all his strength

00:14:29.140 for the cause of extinguishing your generations.

00:14:32.240 Against this, how dare we spend our days in squabbling brother wars?

00:14:38.380 How dare we refuse the command of our Lord to fight for the unity of the faith?

00:14:42.920 Now, anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

00:14:46.440 Christian unity has and will be a tumultuous work, but it is a work worth doing, 0.96

00:14:50.740 even if done haltingly, imperfectly, and with setbacks and challenges and all the rest.

00:14:55.440 What we have to remember is that all of us,

00:14:58.260 While we may differ in convictions on things great and small, things ranging from the confessions we defend to our convictions about historical events like the Crusades or the Civil Wars or the World Wars, we're one people whether we like it or not.

00:15:12.960 We belong to one another.

00:15:15.520 Some of you have tremendous gifts.

00:15:17.760 Some of you have determination.

00:15:19.620 Some of you have kindness.

00:15:20.680 Some industry.

00:15:21.980 Some teach.

00:15:22.700 Some raise godly generations.

00:15:24.520 Some pastor.

00:15:25.320 Some lead.

00:15:25.840 Some weld, write, hit nails, pray.

00:15:28.260 And some of you can and are great troublers of the kingdom of darkness.

00:15:32.760 As citizens of the kingdom of God, we must not only do our duties with joy,

00:15:37.180 we must do them with joy together.

00:15:40.500 As for us here in Ogden, we respect and we aim to honor others

00:15:44.580 doing eternally significant work for the gospel and the kingdom of God.

00:15:47.600 For example, the good men and women of Moscow and the CREC,

00:15:51.800 Apologia, G3, Founders, Right Response, and many others.

00:15:56.600 We see these tribes as allies in the work of the faith.

00:16:00.580 Our aim is not to spend our days in strength attacking these allies,

00:16:05.060 but rather to work with them to defeat our common enemy

00:16:08.200 and contend for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

00:16:12.000 Do we agree on everything?

00:16:13.840 Obviously not.

00:16:15.240 Do any two men agree on everything?

00:16:17.500 We don't agree on everything, but we do love these men.

00:16:20.640 Many will point to our own deficiencies and missteps.

00:16:23.940 Some will do this with good intent and others with malice.

00:16:26.940 But we, with imperfect zeal, will both teach and defend our principles and convictions when called upon to do so.

00:16:33.380 But we will also cheerfully repent.

00:16:35.640 We are convinced by Scripture and reason that we've erred.

00:16:38.300 Our aim has been and will always be to please our Father to do His work,

00:16:43.560 including the good work of bearing with one another in love,

00:16:47.800 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

00:16:51.580 See, a united Protestant church would change the coming generations.

00:16:56.360 A united church would see a world lost in darkness turn to the light of Christ.

00:17:01.360 A united church would see enemy strongholds cast down in their high places, salted.

00:17:06.020 And so let us, the people of God, come together and not satisfy ourselves with public bickering

00:17:13.280 and contentions.

00:17:14.680 Instead, let us disagree like true blood-brought brothers that we are.

00:17:19.860 Let us work as often as possible to deal with our differences privately,

00:17:23.700 behind the scenes, and avoid bringing further division to the public eye.

00:17:28.900 If there's to be any meaningful rebuilding of Christendom,

00:17:32.720 work dear to our hearts,

00:17:34.400 there must be a renewed ability to forge coalitions.

00:17:38.260 We must be able to maintain distinctives and differences

00:17:41.100 while treating each other as brothers in Christ.

00:17:44.500 In this episode of the King's Hall podcast,

00:17:46.840 we'll be asking some pivotal questions along these lines.

00:17:50.200 Can such a coalition be built?

00:17:52.040 If so, how?

00:17:54.040 If that work is to be done,

00:17:55.560 which principles and practical steps can be taken

00:17:58.100 to ensure that our work doesn't implode,

00:18:00.540 that it doesn't descend and devolve

00:18:02.660 into destructive infighting,

00:18:04.580 but lasts for many generations?

00:18:07.600 The King's Hall Podcast exists

00:18:09.180 to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world.

00:18:16.260 well gentlemen welcome to this episode of the king's hall podcast brian if you can't tell

00:18:40.080 it's a little bit special today i know the people listening won't be able to tell the difference

00:18:44.480 yeah but i actually get to stare at your face man we probably should have told them at the

00:18:48.780 beginning so that they could like close apple podcast go to youtube or rumble and like actually

00:18:53.480 watch the video because we've got a whole camera studio now like i'm looking at people right now

00:18:59.900 who are watching on youtube i'm staring into their soul well and they love it it's weird because i'm

00:19:06.400 still staring into the soul of dan yeah which is completely normal and natural dan welcome to the

00:19:12.360 show dance disappoint this is so much better this is the thing this is the thing i wanted people to

00:19:17.120 see with video is dan's disappointment written on his face when brian and i say certain i have

00:19:23.200 even fewer motivations now to talk because now there's a camera that's looking at me dan you

00:19:28.540 look so handsome i'm looking at the screen and your face at the same time and let me just say

00:19:33.600 wow i'm blushing you are really he's not blushing he's not blushing uh brian one of the things that

00:19:41.460 I do want to talk about is from the cold open when you were going through some of the history

00:19:46.920 it actually kind of reminded me of Vladimir Putin talking to Tucker Carlson when he's like can you

00:19:53.100 tell me why the conflict in Ukraine and you're like it begins 800 years ago yes that's a bit

00:19:58.580 what it's like talking about you know Christian brothers fighting so we'll get into some of that

00:20:03.860 but first today's a very special day as well of the recording because you oh yeah and your guy

00:20:10.840 ben our guy ben yeah our guy ben uh basically uh we have a new york times bestseller more or less

00:20:16.940 look i've been told that if you sell 15 000 copies in like the first whatever set i don't know weeks

00:20:23.680 or whatever that's the number to get into the new york times bestseller and we have sold some number

00:20:30.900 towards that level of the book some number some number we have we and when i say sold i mean

00:20:38.520 there's a pre-order open right now at new christendompress.com slash cosmos and if you

00:20:44.300 go there you can pre-order the new book haunted cosmos doing your duty in a world that's not just

00:20:48.360 stuff and you can learn all about the world god made the scene and the unseen and how to do your

00:20:52.920 duty in it um i really we've had a good time in all seriousness writing this book ben and i

00:20:58.900 and i think people are going to enjoy it i hope they are because it was a it was a heck ton of

00:21:03.480 work. Writing books is hard. That sounds like a Midwestern term, honestly. Heck ton. I don't

00:21:09.440 think it is. Made up on the spot. Heck no. One of the things I do think is cool, and this is

00:21:14.460 something that we've been highlighting in the way that we produce things. This, of course, will be

00:21:20.300 a nice hardback book. Yeah. It's got a beautiful cover. Obviously, the labor and work that you

00:21:26.280 guys put into it. But there's also a reason that we're selling on the website. That's right. And

00:21:31.760 that Brian can say more about it, but really we're, we're trying to, instead of giving our money to

00:21:37.100 people who hate us in the middleman, we're actually paying people locally in our community that we

00:21:42.360 want to support. And so, yeah, that's some people might ask like, why didn't you go through a big

00:21:47.840 distributor like Amazon? Yeah. Because we want to support local people in places. Yeah, that's

00:21:53.100 right. So, I mean, you look at the book industry, everybody sells through Amazon. They say you're

00:21:57.440 stupid if you don't sell through amazon amazon just to list the book to put it in perspective 0.99

00:22:02.280 it's like even if they don't ship it and fulfill it it's you know five plus dollars per book that 0.99

00:22:07.240 they're taking so we thought look why don't we just uh hire people in our own community

00:22:13.500 and learn how to do this ourselves and fulfill things in-house it lets us actually touch the

00:22:19.020 things that we're giving to people as well we can add notes we can it's more human yeah but also it

00:22:24.660 does. It's not sending our money to, and seriously, if you've ever talked with Amazon

00:22:29.220 customer service as a seller, you're talking to somebody in India, you're outsourcing all the 0.96

00:22:36.220 strength to the third world and not to your brothers, not to your sisters. So yeah, we've 0.92

00:22:42.380 been very pleased to be able to sell Zach Garris' book so far through our website. And also Haunted

00:22:48.580 cosmos is going to be sold just through our website um with i mean we will we'll be selling

00:22:54.080 some kindle kindle editions and things like that the solely digital ones elsewhere as well but

00:23:00.540 i think it's going to show in helping us um they're trying to drive everybody to use all of

00:23:06.480 amazon's own printing as well and all it is is they slowly drive out all the other printers out

00:23:12.260 of business they slowly lower the quality for the same price to increase their margin and then we're

00:23:17.480 all stuck with it and then we're all stuck with it and what we're doing is we're saying let's let

00:23:21.080 every book that goes out from new christina press we hope that it has the quality internally to be

00:23:27.500 worthy of passing on to your kids but let's make sure that that's even possible in the first place

00:23:32.360 with the quality of the printing if the book turns out to be good enough that you'd want to

00:23:36.200 give it to somebody in i don't know 10 years or 20 years let's make sure the book is still there

00:23:41.640 and not falling apart and worthless and just junk.

00:23:47.180 Big, fast, and famous, cheap, fast, and whatever.

00:23:50.280 I don't know, highest margin.

00:23:51.760 That's not the approach we're taking.

00:23:53.640 We're trying to do heirloom quality work,

00:23:55.300 even on something as simple as a book that you would get.

00:23:58.920 So yeah, I'm super excited about that.

00:24:01.220 And the website again, newchristendompress.com slash-

00:24:03.860 Cosmos.

00:24:04.360 Cosmos.

00:24:05.340 So you can get your pre-order

00:24:07.060 and then we're going to have a lot of orders to fill.

00:24:10.720 I did want to say it was really funny because our last book, we had a second print run that showed up.

00:24:16.960 And to watch the assembly line of St. Brendan's students carrying books in. 0.99

00:24:21.540 Child labor laws are ruining this country.

00:24:23.240 I think we could all agree.

00:24:24.740 So we're actually also just to note, it's pre-order right now.

00:24:28.200 And this episode will come out like first week of October.

00:24:31.360 But we are going to be shipping the book, Lord willing, in the first week or two of November.

00:24:36.040 So the goal is that it would be to, if you pre-order, you'll get it in time for Christmas, unless something goes catastrophically wrong, like a black swan thing.

00:24:44.680 You know, who knows?

00:24:45.240 Maybe all of the shipping providers will blow up or they'll all do.

00:24:50.440 I don't know.

00:24:50.900 They'll all get Wuhan flu.

00:24:52.720 But insofar as it's up to us.

00:24:54.460 Thankfully, we're not shipping the book from China, though.

00:24:56.820 No, we're not.

00:24:57.460 It is over.

00:24:58.140 Well, it's not overseas.

00:24:59.200 Different country.

00:24:59.920 It's over the Canadian border.

00:25:01.200 It's Canada.

00:25:02.100 But yeah.

00:25:02.680 We're trying to free the Canadians one step at a time from the tyranny of their government.

00:25:08.060 So we have to get an inroad there, and we choose to do that through printing this book there.

00:25:12.560 And then we reconquist the Canada, I think.

00:25:15.360 That's step two.

00:25:16.240 Step two.

00:25:17.380 Gentlemen, as we jump into this episode, one of the key themes that we're talking about, this concept of no more brother wars.

00:25:23.800 um we've seen it brian throughout the history of christendom that as you as you were reading

00:25:30.580 that this is one of the crucial problems is christians killing each other christians having 0.98

00:25:36.980 stupid wars even pope urban the second uh telling the christians like stop you need to stop fighting 0.99

00:25:42.320 each other um and as you think about this and some of the unnecessary brother wars that have 0.99

00:25:47.860 happened over time why is it so important in christian camps christian reform circles like

00:25:52.660 ours, that we avoid that? That's really the key question, to understand the thesis for this

00:25:59.300 episode, is that, so what are we talking about? We're talking about brother wars, and why are we

00:26:04.640 talking about that? Because avoiding them is one of the most important things that we can do

00:26:08.660 practically to actually be effective as a whole body of Christians in accomplishing the tasks 0.93

00:26:17.040 that God has given us in the world and both,

00:26:20.860 and I mean that in the earthly and the heavenly realm.

00:26:23.800 The heavenly goal of seeing the nations converted

00:26:26.900 will be aided by Christians loving one another effectively

00:26:29.900 and earthly goals, like practically not just loving

00:26:34.120 in word and talk as the New Testament warns,

00:26:37.840 but actually in deed and in practice.

00:26:40.120 To the degree that we're distracted

00:26:41.900 with brother warring that's unnecessary,

00:26:43.740 we will be hindered in accomplishing both of those ends.

00:26:48.220 One of the things I brought up in the talk at,

00:26:51.680 the talk I gave at our conference in June

00:26:53.380 on building Christian boroughs

00:26:55.460 was the need to practice in-group preference.

00:26:57.940 And the need to practice in-group preference

00:27:00.200 as an outgrowth or an application

00:27:02.620 of one of the most consistent ethical instructions

00:27:06.800 in the entire Bible,

00:27:08.660 and particularly in the New Testament. 1.00

00:27:10.860 And it is the command that Christians

00:27:13.220 are to love one another. I mean, if I have a list of verses I could read, but you could go listen

00:27:19.700 to the talk if you want to hear, like, I think I read a dozen passages of scripture, just

00:27:23.300 shotgun in the talk. Because if you just open your Bible, you're going to find that the Lord

00:27:30.820 Jesus and his apostles are so serious about the Christian duty to love one another that they say

00:27:37.640 things like, people will know that you are, that you belong to Christ at all if you love one

00:27:44.540 another. If you don't, inversely, then are you a disciple? So brother wars, historically, in the

00:27:52.960 first Christendom, particularly in the war against Muslim invasion, but also just in lots of,

00:27:58.580 especially if you look at the European continent and the Christian nations there, they were engaged

00:28:04.880 in constant, destructive, spiraling brother wars where Christian nation was fighting with

00:28:11.020 Christian nation. And I think we see this parallel, not only in history in that sense, but also

00:28:17.780 there is a polemic, a temptation to do this on the level of polemics, where we might not be

00:28:25.420 engaged in hot wars between different tribes within the reformed Christian world, but there's

00:28:31.400 often just a constant undercurrent of conflict yeah you certainly see you know people trying to

00:28:39.220 destroy reputations people trying to you know dox one another cancel one another any form of that

00:28:45.180 so it's like it can be equally damaging and and i think you know really unhelpful uh dan as you

00:28:51.160 think about kind of world war one like go back to that from the cold open it it surprised me and i

00:28:57.280 wonder if it did you or just thinking about this number one how related these guys are the monarchs

00:29:02.320 from germany uh the uk and then also russia that's kind of surprising that they would all go to war

00:29:08.040 with each other but but really what shocked me was the historian statement to this day they're

00:29:13.580 not actually sure how it escalated to that level um was that at all disturbing surprising for you

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00:30:02.100 It was surprising for me when I first read about that in Buchanan's book. Yeah, it was very

00:30:09.000 interesting because just the narrative that I learned through school, primarily through World

00:30:17.080 war ii because we didn't really study world war one that much in school from what i recall and

00:30:21.960 you just assume that it was inevitable and that there was just cause you know obviously like with

00:30:28.200 world war ii and the lens you view uh europe through and and and by proxy i think world war

00:30:33.660 one was like oh this was definitely like there's the black hats and there's the white hats there's

00:30:38.220 the good guys and bad guys and there was no other option than the outcome that we received i think

00:30:43.860 that that was a surprise to me when I first read that. And Buchanan in his book, Churchill,

00:30:50.960 Hitler, and the Unnecessary War was really illuminating for me to really reframe in my

00:30:57.500 mind the historical narrative. And at least, even if you're not convinced by it, to at least

00:31:03.060 understand that maybe history isn't as clear and as linear as one might assume, you know,

00:31:10.120 that the common narrative maybe, maybe isn't the absolute truth. And so it's interesting to start

00:31:16.260 viewing history as it is, which is messy. And you have different narrators telling the same story

00:31:23.160 and they emphasize different points differently. And so I think it is important to understand,

00:31:28.180 you know, history through that lens, but World War I in particular, it is interesting that he

00:31:34.780 said that it is said that they don't know why it started well that's crazy to me i think one of the

00:31:40.600 things that interests me if you fast forward to today you know uh doug wilson is continually

00:31:45.440 saying don't take the bait and i think one of the baits that we are tempted to take is like

00:31:49.800 on social media it's so easy brian to just like you get in this mode i know i do maybe it's the

00:31:56.540 martial spirit i don't know but you can get in this mode where it's like oh everybody's jumping

00:32:01.080 on this person or this issue. Wait, we should do that too. We feel very compelled to play like a

00:32:06.480 denouncement game. There's often times where I'll be the first to admit you can want to respond to

00:32:11.700 a post before you even fully have read the post or you fully know what's going on. Some people

00:32:17.240 even talked about in social media that they think maybe the way that the algorithm is working is to,

00:32:22.740 it could be somewhat nefarious even where they're forcing you to be in close contact

00:32:28.680 interact with people who are naturally going to disagree because it's engagement.

00:32:34.040 Well, I think Elon has even said in a tweet that if you interact open posts from people that you

00:32:41.400 disagree with, you're going to see that content more. And actually one of the biggest weighted

00:32:46.240 factors he said, from what I recall is if you share a link or share a post with your friends,

00:32:53.960 that is the highest one of the highest levels of engagement and it will guarantee that you see

00:32:58.600 that so it could be nefarious i mean definitely possible but it could also be just of your own

00:33:04.100 making but do you see like that connection with world war one in some of those things of saying

00:33:09.140 like hey maybe we should be brian a little slower to want to destroy somebody's entire reputation

00:33:15.600 based on like a thing they said um do you see that as a connection yeah i mean and this is

00:33:21.960 something that I've been thinking a lot about over the last year as we've engaged in lots of

00:33:29.460 different topics that are controversial and but I think important for our day and you start to see

00:33:35.900 you know sort of where divisions lie or where cracks start to form in coalitions one of the

00:33:41.660 things in the cold open we talked about was like the guy that's your best friend on Monday morning

00:33:46.200 is your mortal enemy by Tuesday afternoon. And you start to think like, why is that? And is

00:33:53.200 that actually good? As a Christian, where, where do we need to draw lines where we're very firm

00:34:00.380 and say, yeah, we are going to say no to this. And we're willing to have a principled parting

00:34:06.200 of ways over this. Where can we have a principled parting of ways even without breaking Christian

00:34:11.240 fellowship, where we're saying, being very clear, I disagree about X. I disagree about a theological

00:34:18.000 thing, a historical interpretation of some past event. I agree with this or that, or disagree

00:34:22.360 about this or that. And it's a significant enough thing that I wouldn't be like, yeah, I'm going to

00:34:27.040 be at your church, or I'm going to be a big fan of your content or something like that.

00:34:33.220 There's that level. And then there's like, this is a person who's denied the faith and is outside 0.85

00:34:39.440 of the camp. Um, and this, I think this is one of the most challenging questions today is to say,

00:34:46.260 make sure that we're getting that right in our minds. I've, I've been challenged even in my own

00:34:51.840 heart of my own calculus of these things to try to train myself that when let's say, you know,

00:34:59.900 take someone from the world that no matter what we say, there's like a percentage of people that

00:35:05.220 no matter what you say, if you're one of us here in Ogden, that people will find a way to think 1.00

00:35:10.380 that you're stupid. Because before you said anything, it was, I hate your face. Yeah. So 1.00

00:35:15.640 you're stupid and evil. And I can't, I actually can't decide which you are, whether you're stupid 1.00

00:35:19.560 or whether you're evil. And I've at least tried to cultivate an instinct to pray for that person. 1.00

00:35:27.540 If it's a brother, if it's, you know, especially if it's a brother, like they're a Christian over

00:35:31.500 in some other, maybe they're in some doctrinal or cultural camp where there's some incentive 0.65

00:35:36.940 to be at odds with one another, to at least start by saying, before God, I think that's

00:35:44.240 actually a brother.

00:35:44.980 Like, we're going to probably be in heaven together.

00:35:47.540 And what's funny is that on a lot of these issues, the people that the algorithm, because

00:35:52.540 it's driven by our attention, drives closer together are often people with far more overlap

00:35:57.780 than less overlap.

00:35:59.160 so for example i am much more likely to be engaged in arguing with a reformed protestant christian

00:36:06.400 who loves cultural engagement is concerned with political theology and you know fill in the blank

00:36:12.100 than i am with someone like sean is it fuked you know the guy who's doing like the pray for trump

00:36:18.000 things across the nation he's like charismatic probably arminian dispensational we actually

00:36:22.680 don't engage with him that much i'm probably not going to be found arguing with that i mean

00:36:26.420 occasionally I might share something and say, this is funny or whatever, but it's, it is funny

00:36:31.060 that that's how it works, that you end up actually mostly fighting with people where the Venn diagram

00:36:36.900 is like two circles with 90% overlap. Yeah. And those are the people that at the end, at the end

00:36:42.700 of the week often are like, man, I don't even know if that's a Christian over there. Well, I think

00:36:46.360 I hate that guy's face or I, right. I want to do everything I can in my power to see that nobody

00:36:51.700 ever listens to him again. Well, I think you're right. And I think one of the things we have to

00:36:55.440 distinguish is what is actual orthodoxy? Not like I made it up orthodoxy, but I mean like

00:37:03.400 biblically, theologically, what actually constitutes orthodoxy and what issues are

00:37:09.340 not, like we can disagree and it's not a test of the faith. One of the things I think is interesting

00:37:14.480 is we've had in the broader church, even including some reform circles, you'll have

00:37:21.120 actual issues of heresy, actual literal heresy. In a lot of denominations and, you know, famous

00:37:29.540 celebrity type pastors and theologians, they'll put up with those things. But then, for example,

00:37:36.620 if you share a Tucker Carlson interview challenging the narrative about Churchill,

00:37:41.620 you are anathematized. You now love Hitler. I mean, so it's, I think this is where it's, 0.93

00:37:47.080 It's just going to be a muscle that we have to keep going back to in training of saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, biblically, are you a heretic because you think that maybe Churchill wasn't the hero you were told?

00:37:58.840 Does that actually biblically make you a heretic?

00:38:02.540 Yeah, well, I think it's – if you take this to other examples that are – where this gets really emotional is where when you have cultural issues that are affecting your exact moment, they're still tied to us.

00:38:13.860 highly likely to be very, you know, so the post-war consensus issue, you're talking about

00:38:17.900 issues related to World War II and the post-war consensus. Those are going to be highly emotional

00:38:22.100 for us because that is the world we live in. Go back even, um, you know, uh, decades before that

00:38:29.100 to the civil war, still going to be emotional, still affects how we think today. And so there's

00:38:33.840 a simmering tension around folks who embrace different aspects of the narrative of, you know,

00:38:39.100 from the guy who's like, it was the war of Northern aggression. I used to call it the

00:38:43.240 civil war to, um, the Yankees literally never did anything wrong. And, um, you know, I'm glad

00:38:49.500 Sherman did what he did. They single-handedly saved us from a world where, you know, um,

00:38:54.240 everybody was a slave. Okay. Right. So there's go back further though. Revolutionary war.

00:38:59.800 Are people as emotional? If you, if you ask the question of like, was the revolutionary war

00:39:03.840 justified or not? Generally not. Generally not. Okay. Go back. Let's say that you, you, you go to,

00:39:08.900 well i don't know um like waterloo do people get really emotional about differing perspectives on

00:39:14.940 on waterloo no and but the thing is any major historical event that has ever happened in the

00:39:21.380 history of the world i bet within 24 hours if you had a large enough platform you could find

00:39:27.240 two eminent historians who take completely opposite views of that historical event and put

00:39:33.740 them up to debate one another neither one of them unhinged crazy fringe person and they would take

00:39:38.620 very different all the you know from caesar to the egyptians to the phoenicians to the to the

00:39:43.440 french to the germans i mean like the romans so the point is you can we can do that with events

00:39:52.320 far in our past but when we start getting close all of a sudden we are tempted to be like and i

00:39:59.020 mean this in both directions because people know we're we're post-war consensus disrespecters we're

00:40:03.820 not fooling anybody here and being like objective and unbiased it's like i'm a post-war consensus

00:40:08.300 disrespecter, right? We were like, Dan wore pit vipers on a stage and, you know, made white boy

00:40:16.100 summer jokes at our conversation. It's actually convenient you bring that up because I came 0.58

00:40:19.840 prepared. No, I don't. I don't. They're in my truck. The point is, so I'm not unbiased in this,

00:40:25.400 but I am saying that in both directions, what we can be prone to do is on the one hand, post-war

00:40:32.220 consensus disrespecters can start to make it a test of fellowship to be like anybody that gets

00:40:36.900 this wrong they're an enemy they're anathematized they're not even a christian and i refuse to deal

00:40:41.680 with them as a brother so basically i'm going to call um all of my christian i don't know if youtube

00:40:48.140 would censor this but i'm going to call all of you know christians who disagree about the post 0.98

00:40:51.940 war consensus they're all fags that's one ditch and then there's the other one that's like oh you 0.98

00:40:57.500 know what they're they're way too into the german nationalism and like on the way over on this other 0.99

00:41:04.740 side and so we're going to be like those guys are basically not christians either and my point is

00:41:09.220 that if we were doing the same thing about the syrophoenicians it would be and it would be

00:41:14.380 obviously silly well i think the syrophoenician way it's like yeah and i think i think part of

00:41:20.920 it too is like when you have the ability to have real world conversations um a lot of people

00:41:27.020 probably know about this from online but i had the chance to talk to james white um and part of that

00:41:32.340 conversation that I think that was so good, we talked about the concentric circles and how much

00:41:37.060 we have in common. And, you know, I just conveyed to James, you know, I love Apologia. We love your

00:41:43.480 people. Like, let's not go to war. We want to be for you. How can I pray for you? Had a really

00:41:48.040 good conversation. And it's over an issue where Christian nationalism, you can walk away and you

00:41:54.760 can say, you know what, James and I see this pretty differently. And I can both appreciate

00:41:58.560 his perspective. I can try to understand it more. There were a few people who were like, oh, you

00:42:04.560 know, you must've got the call. You gave in. I'm like, nobody changed their position. I just decided

00:42:10.200 that James White is a brother, like re-decided. I thought that before, but just reminding myself,

00:42:15.920 well, he's a brother. We've been purchased by the blood of Christ. I think that we can find a way

00:42:21.480 to get along. If God has parted our sin from us and dealt with that in Christ, I think we can get

00:42:27.600 along. We have the same spirit, the same father. You know, we can work this out.

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00:43:33.200 Hmm. Oh, yes.

00:43:36.060 Hey, Dan, what are you doing?

00:43:38.500 I'm just checking my mutual funds, my stock portfolio.

00:43:43.300 Mutual funds, stock portfolio?

00:43:46.140 What did Dave Ramsey tell you to do that?

00:43:50.380 Maybe.

00:43:51.800 Why?

00:43:52.580 How's your return looking so far this year?

00:43:55.380 Well, they just did come out with unemployment numbers, and they're a little higher or lower

00:44:00.980 than I thought.

00:44:02.100 Ooh.

00:44:03.220 Well, have you ever thought about diversifying your portfolio into things like silver and

00:44:07.420 gold?

00:44:08.260 I mean, yeah, I guess.

00:44:10.900 Well, you know, gold and silver are having pretty good years.

00:44:13.680 I mean, gold is up 20% in the last 12 months.

00:44:16.620 20%?

00:44:17.300 Yeah.

00:44:17.960 Have you ever thought of investing in it?

00:44:19.600 I hadn't.

00:44:20.240 How would I do that?

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00:45:31.300 So, Dan, I want to ask you,

00:45:34.600 as you think about some of these issues

00:45:36.360 and just like real world people interactions

00:45:38.660 like Christian nationalism, Churchill, World War II,

00:45:41.660 is it possible for you to have unity

00:45:46.360 with a person on those issues that you wildly disagree with?

00:45:50.480 And if so, how, how do you go about pursuing that?

00:45:53.100 What if I said, no, what would you do?

00:45:55.920 Dude, I would be like, it's like, uh, no, of course, absolutely.

00:46:02.780 And Brian, you brought this up about, uh, proximity within time and location of events

00:46:09.300 being, having more value.

00:46:11.060 It's really perceived value, right?

00:46:13.100 As you look back in history, there were some events that were monumentally more important

00:46:18.440 through the narrative of of human history than like say january 6 right and what happened my

00:46:24.520 birthday i was talking about the capital riots oh i thought you're talking about the more important

00:46:31.420 event that's my bad oh i didn't even know i just assumed brian's birthday i could have actually

00:46:35.720 said epiphany too that you know which is much more important than my birthday but go ahead oh my word

00:46:40.220 i could have picked a different example i guess now that i think about it but my point being that

00:46:45.680 obviously the closer in time that things occur and the proximity, like there are big events that

00:46:51.220 happened worldwide recently and we're ignorant of them. So is it something worth dividing over? No,

00:46:56.940 absolutely not. Um, but things that happen locally tend to have more weight and importance in our

00:47:02.100 own minds. And so I think it's important to step back from that and realize like, uh, we could

00:47:07.860 disagree over Churchill. We could disagree over political theory, theology, philosophy,

00:47:15.120 things like that, and still be brothers. Here's, I think, one of the things that I could be wrong.

00:47:21.020 Here's one of the things that I think is going on, though. As you look through the narrative

00:47:24.820 of history that we talked about in the beginning of the episode, first with the Crusades, you had

00:47:29.300 a lot of brothers, brothering nations, Christian nations, that essentially either turned an eye

00:47:37.720 of apathy, you know, away or intentionally avoided being an ally to someone in need,

00:47:43.300 another Christian brother, and abandoned them to Muslims. Or you had actual like Judas's betrayers 0.63

00:47:52.260 within the camp that betrayed, you know, Christian nations. That was going on. And then in World War

00:47:59.640 II, you essentially have, and I think this is probably the case with both, there is some

00:48:04.220 nefarious thing going on. You know, why did World War I start? Nobody knows. It's a mystery.

00:48:12.180 Somebody wanted it to start. Yeah. You know, World War II, why did that continue? You know,

00:48:18.700 it was, both of those wars were unnecessary. And so you have somebody turning Christian against

00:48:23.400 Christian. But in either case, I am getting to a point, in either case, with the Crusades and with

00:48:29.260 the 20th century violence and wars that we had we're we're now in an era where we're so much

00:48:36.780 more polite that things don't rise to the level of violence and i'm not calling for violence saying

00:48:43.500 that that was a better thing that if in the in the uh you know 11th century if you insulted

00:48:49.140 your brother it was like we have a duel we're gonna yeah to the death you know we're going to

00:48:54.240 fight. But it does result in one thing, and that's being more polite. And you understand we're like

00:49:01.460 blood relatives, essentially. We're 90% of the way there, theologically and philosophically

00:49:09.480 and politically. And the thing is, our politeness, I think, has shrouded or has prevented violence,

00:49:16.520 definitely. But there's a different thing happening that's actually more egregious in ways

00:49:21.860 because it's not a threat to your person if you disagree with someone. It's actually worse. It's

00:49:26.700 a threat to your reputation, to your honor, to your family name. And I think it's really easy

00:49:32.540 to forget that when you disagree with someone over something like the post-war consensus or

00:49:38.860 something like that, because your direct feedback is actually just numbers on a screen. It's numbers

00:49:45.420 or it's letters on a screen. That's the level of your disagreement. It's really easy to get hostile

00:49:50.400 when it's essentially just the number of likes that you have or the number of retweets, quote

00:49:56.300 tweets, followers you gained or lost, you know, the reactions that you're getting within this

00:50:01.320 sphere of the modern battleground that we're fighting in. And it's a lot more difficult to

00:50:06.940 do that, the disagreeing, when you actually pick up the phone and you talk to somebody

00:50:11.140 and you have this person that's like, I think you're my enemy and I'm going to call you and

00:50:16.920 I'm going to let you have it. And they're like, Oh, Hey brother, like may the Lord bless you.

00:50:21.700 And you're like, Whoa, yeah, I guess may the Lord bless you too. Like it becomes a lot more real

00:50:28.320 than numbers on a screen when you talk to someone. So all of that to say, yes, I think you can agree

00:50:34.000 with people, uh, agree to disagree, to have, um, differing convictions and still be friends.

00:50:41.060 Yeah. The works of the flesh are rivalries, dissensions, envy. So when you see those things

00:50:47.280 happening, you know that the flesh is at work somewhere. Now that doesn't mean that, you know,

00:50:52.140 because someone could say, well, then is it all like anytime you're calling out an error or you're

00:50:56.480 saying that someone is wrong and that we need to be warned against, that's not always a sin.

00:51:01.200 Sometimes the sin really is the person that you're warning against. Like they really were being the

00:51:06.020 tight as three divisive man or you know something like that um but i think far too often we privilege

00:51:11.880 our own uh little bubble and we're like we far too often put people in that category well before

00:51:19.420 we should well you know and that's kind of what i'm talking about is like being careful

00:51:22.840 about the anathematization but brian you you and i were also talking in preparation for the show

00:51:28.760 about really even rhetoric uh one of the things that james white brought up is he said you know

00:51:34.160 it's really unhelpful when we just like if the Presbyterians and the Baptists are going at it

00:51:40.140 and you just start throwing around words like Anabaptist and Pietist and sometimes that shuts

00:51:44.720 down the conversation. But you can see this even like way more explosive than that is, well, you're

00:51:50.260 a Nazi, you're a racist. Generally, when those terms are being used, they're being used against 0.97

00:51:55.980 enemies. So making that distinction. Actually, Brian brought up a really good point yesterday

00:52:01.920 when we were talking about this with memes that's where i was going with it yeah so if you're

00:52:07.100 talking about like memes um and let's say uh it's a moscow apologia those guys are both older

00:52:13.100 but is it actually helpful the boomer take the car keys away comments like does that actually

00:52:19.120 foster a conversation and and should be you should you be using those against friends

00:52:25.800 it becomes a very difficult question and on the other side uh we might say things like well are

00:52:32.300 the you know i was doing this when you were in diapers like does that really help a lot of times

00:52:37.480 no so talk to me about rhetoric memeing how do you view that see this is this is uh it's complex

00:52:44.600 because memes are multivariate memes are multi-dimensional you can meme your friends

00:52:50.560 and you can meme your enemies and both of those can be lawful and licit and you can meme your

00:52:55.440 friends and you can meme your enemies in ways that are unlawful and illicit i suspect a new book

00:52:59.940 that's going to be written by brian silvey i love meme warfare i do want to write a book on memes

00:53:05.320 well actually and i think this is really yeah i do i actually on rhetoric on me because so yeah

00:53:10.080 yeah go ahead i just want to say this is important too because um this is actually how it works in

00:53:14.280 real life so like when i was talking to james we've had this back and forth joke he had to get

00:53:18.420 hearing aids and he said you know he's telling me about the technology or whatever and you know

00:53:24.300 it's funny and so he'll like i'll text him something because we've been texting about

00:53:28.760 sweaters you know i'm gonna get myself a coogee so uh we're texting and but he'll he'll jokingly

00:53:34.560 he'll jokingly say to me huh what'd you say in text and i'm like this is funny but because this

00:53:41.440 is like this is a way we're like this would be the category of the meme that's not malicious

00:53:46.440 we're friends and we're actually just joking with each other versus other other forms so yeah

00:53:53.280 Yeah, you have like, so there's, there's memeing. There's one way to meme the enemy and meme enemies. And that's where you're trying to totally dismantle them. You're trying to essentially treat them as if they're not worthy of a serious response. They're so unworthy of a serious response that all I'm going to do is respond with the most.

00:54:12.760 reductio ad ad serbum yeah absurdum in picture form in picture form i'm just gonna you're 0.58

00:54:18.660 ridiculous and uh there there are also memes that communicate very pointed truth effectively in a 0.88

00:54:24.620 rhetorically effective way there's memes where you're making fun of friends and when you're like 0.94

00:54:29.160 memeing back and forth publicly and it's actually funny because people are you're just friends and

00:54:33.360 you're the theonomist memeing at the 2k guy and they're they're laughing about how they disagree

00:54:38.060 but it's clear that they actually see one another as brothers okay then there's the the version of 0.90

00:54:44.180 that where everyone knows that this is actually blood serious and i want to destroy you and so

00:54:50.660 again this can go in in both direction and a lot of the brother wars we've seen online recently

00:54:54.760 where um it's like you know you see oh i think these white boy summer guys they're all they're

00:55:00.440 heading down the they're getting ditty to and nazified or whatever jared longshore was talking

00:55:05.020 about they're going in the um they're getting taken in you're taking the bait you're getting

00:55:09.760 you're basically um being deceived by feds and pulled in you're you're getting trapped in the

00:55:15.000 left's frame you're going that direction and and most of the time i think if there was sober

00:55:19.500 discussion and when it's gotten to the level of sober discussion like isker going to moscow and

00:55:24.020 talking on that doug and friends thing um most of the time you find that oh actually i don't think

00:55:29.380 that's what's happening like isker isn't getting caught in the left's frame he's not taking the

00:55:33.180 bait. He's actually, there's some real disagreements here. And what I would want to see happen

00:55:39.100 is for everybody to be able to say, I'm going to make my point as strong as I can. I'm going to

00:55:46.920 even contrast my position against maybe another group or faction or brother's position, because

00:55:55.500 that's helpful rhetorically to understand. I'm arguing for this, not that. That's not brother

00:56:01.720 warring in itself. That's just normal rhetoric. You're saying, I take this position on this

00:56:07.760 doctrinal, cultural, historical issue, not that. And then the other person can say, here's my

00:56:12.700 response. I take this position, not that. Here's why. But you know that it's serious when there's

00:56:19.920 like, you know, like we've had this happen. I'll give an example where someone will call us and

00:56:25.460 say, Hey, you know, Brian or Eric or Dan, so-and-so told us, they privately warned us about

00:56:32.580 you and told, told, you know, told us be careful associating with those guys. You know, they're

00:56:39.100 real fill in the blank. They're, you know, Nazi, they're whatever it is. They're this or that. 0.51

00:56:44.140 They're things that we've never advocated for. And a lot of the time those have happened where

00:56:51.280 even it's like but they didn't tell me that they didn't they didn't tell me that they i would have

00:56:56.700 clarified immediately like no i'm not that actually here's my real position maybe it is

00:57:01.080 different from yours and i'm going to clarify that we've done that as well many times um but

00:57:06.940 the the rhetorical brother warring also happens through political behind the scenes maneuvering

00:57:12.300 where it's like uh we're gonna we really need to distance ourselves over from here

00:57:16.620 and and what i'm advocating for is that we need to distance ourselves from things we don't hold

00:57:23.040 true positions we don't hold clarify what we do believe and um that that's an effect like

00:57:29.600 that's the agon of modern discourse on social media and in in the public eye there should be

00:57:34.620 and will be a lot of that um however i think that that where we're really playing into the

00:57:42.080 hand of the left and the enemy is in brother warring, not in taking the bait, the left's

00:57:48.240 bait. I think what the enemy is really good at, the world of flesh and the devil's really good at

00:57:53.100 is Christian disunity. And that's like, if I could pick one enemy that is in need of great 0.99

00:58:00.820 attack within the house, like cleaning our own room, Jordan Peterson style, before we try to

00:58:05.060 clean the world's room, it would be this because of how relentless the New Testament is on this

00:58:10.260 point, which is why, again, we haven't done this perfectly, but you would be hard-pressed to find

00:58:17.600 us counter-signaling closely aligned but different groups from us. For example, you would be hard-pressed

00:58:25.500 to find us routinely or regularly trying to emphasize differences that we have with Pastor

00:58:32.100 Wilson in Moscow or the CRUC. And there's things we disagree about, but I'm like, we're probably 94%

00:58:38.160 overlap. Why would we, and what we're trying to avoid is what I call the discernment ministry

00:58:43.440 spiral that's tempting, which is a form of brother warring where everybody gets sucked

00:58:49.040 into essentially turning their whole persona and point of existing into a discernment ministry of

00:58:56.160 other close, but not quite like us ministries, groups, churches, denominations, whatever,

00:59:01.720 until you go and it's like you wake up 10 years later and you realize that 90% of the things

00:59:07.320 that you've written, podcasted, and, you know, publicly spoken about are about some other

00:59:12.620 Christian group. Like an example we can all, I think, laugh at, think of how Napark did this 0.99

00:59:17.920 with the Federal Vision and with all of those guys in the CREC. It's like, if you were to ask

00:59:23.160 an AI to analyze all the things they talk about online and say, what is this group about? What

00:59:27.860 do they exist for? They would say they exist to be an anti-Doug Wilson group. I mean, that would

00:59:33.720 be their conclusion. They'd be like, this group exists. The AI would just be, it's just doing the

00:59:37.440 numbers. So I don't want, like, it sickens me, the idea of spending my life and my strength

00:59:44.080 constantly engaging in back and forth blogging and podcasting with brothers who are 90% similar

00:59:50.200 in a discernment ministry spiral until all of us are isolated on our own little hilltops in

00:59:56.560 different places. And basically, if you ask the AI to interpret all of our behavior, it would

01:00:01.580 conclude, these groups are mortal enemies. Right. Instead of Christian boroughs working together

01:00:07.320 for the earthly and heavenly good of our neighbor. Well, I think that's, it's important too, 1.00

01:00:11.820 because what we're not saying either, Dan, we talked about this, maybe season one or season

01:00:17.000 two in King's Hall, we were talking about fundamentalism and how like, okay, we're going

01:00:21.440 to center what we believe around these core doctrines, and then we're going to water everything

01:00:25.380 else down. We're not advocating for that. We're still saying like, yeah, we're going to lay out

01:00:30.820 our positive vision for doctrine and action.

01:00:33.560 There will be times to compare and contrast

01:00:35.780 with other people.

01:00:36.900 We welcome those sorts of discussions

01:00:38.780 with other camps as well.

01:00:40.500 Like you can look at an apologia

01:00:42.320 and you're like, yeah, like Jeff Durbin

01:00:44.040 is gonna be very active politically

01:00:45.680 with like the abortion issue, right?

01:00:47.860 And we say, hey, that's not necessarily our thing,

01:00:50.940 but we love that Jeff's doing that.

01:00:52.820 We pray for them.

01:00:53.680 They have that sort of that unique spirit

01:00:58.680 to their household, if you will.

01:01:00.820 And we're saying that we're actually happy that Rohan is Rohan and Gondor is Gondor, all the way down the line with a lot of those issues.

01:01:08.640 So we're not saying water it down.

01:01:10.920 And then we're also not saying, hey, no issues matter.

01:01:14.260 You can't debate them.

01:01:15.520 Right.

01:01:15.880 But we are saying if it gets to almost this, I guess, vitriolic level where you start thinking in your mind, and this is where it really does seem to come down to a personal level.

01:01:27.120 When you get to in your mind, I hate this person. 0.99

01:01:30.820 I want to destroy them. 1.00

01:01:32.580 I can't stand them. 1.00

01:01:33.760 I'm at the point where I haven't called them

01:01:35.400 and I haven't talked to them,

01:01:36.500 but I would warn other people about them.

01:01:38.980 I think when you're at that level,

01:01:40.780 it's helpful to have people around you

01:01:42.500 who check that and say,

01:01:44.000 well, maybe you guys should just talk.

01:01:46.520 Yeah, and maybe you should actually talk on the phone,

01:01:50.200 not on Twitter.

01:01:51.680 Yeah.

01:01:52.080 And actually not in podcasts back and forth.

01:01:54.200 Well, and this is another one too.

01:01:55.320 I think with social media,

01:01:56.940 I've seen it from both sides to be fair.

01:01:59.460 but one of the things I continually get accused of is you're just an engagement farmer so this

01:02:05.080 is another one of those rhetorical name-calling type things where it's like let's be real if

01:02:09.760 you're a public figure and I'm a public figure and we both have positive visions for the way

01:02:13.240 we think the Christian world in America should be to some extent we're all quote-unquote

01:02:17.720 engagement farming to some extent we now and here's the reality you could also say well yeah

01:02:23.300 maybe they made that post and maybe they were trying to do it because they want us as many

01:02:27.380 eyeballs as possible to see that but maybe they also believe it yeah i actually because i'm very

01:02:32.080 holy eric i when i post i try to post in a way that as few people will see as possible so typically

01:02:37.980 i just post to a word document it's uh creed thoughts uh dot x slash forward slash brian

01:02:44.540 dot creed thought we just we just actually do a paper newsletter yeah and that because i'm really

01:02:48.920 holy i don't want anybody to see my see i just don't have any thoughts at all as the holiest

01:02:54.560 one among us. How pious am I? You're like the Buddhists. You have ceased from all desire

01:02:58.560 and so found the path to nirvana. Good job, Dan. You've been absorbed into the cosmic one.

01:03:04.680 The cosmic one. Yes. No, Eric, back to what you were saying about disagreements and things like

01:03:09.840 that. And even the brother warring, I would almost rather have the public brother warring

01:03:16.740 than the subversive, behind-the-scenes, worm-tongue, malice, gossip.

01:03:22.840 Why?

01:03:23.500 Well, here's what happens.

01:03:26.080 It's one thing to have a pastor pastoring his congregation,

01:03:29.880 and someone's like, hey, I really like Hanna Cosmos.

01:03:32.960 I'm familiar with it.

01:03:34.340 Are you familiar with it?

01:03:35.980 Yeah, I'm not really—I wouldn't encourage you to listen to that.

01:03:40.620 Okay, that's one thing.

01:03:41.580 A pastor has the authority to do that.

01:03:43.440 But when it's a public figure or a person of note that is trying to subvert reputations of people who he has their phone number and going behind the scenes and poisoning the well with vague accusations, essentially with malice and gossip without anything concrete, having never talked to the person that he's trying to tarnish their reputation.

01:04:09.760 That's actually sinful.

01:04:10.720 That is sinful.

01:04:11.440 And it happens all the time.

01:04:13.060 It really does.

01:04:14.180 It happens within churches.

01:04:15.400 We're all familiar with that.

01:04:16.700 It's the, it's the, I'm going to gossip, but I don't want people to know I'm gossiping,

01:04:21.200 you know?

01:04:21.600 So it's like, Hey pastor, uh, I don't know what's going on with X, Y, and Z person,

01:04:25.780 but I am really concerned about them.

01:04:28.300 I've noticed this and this and this, well, have you talked to the, you know, it's that

01:04:32.920 whole thing, but that's actually happening behind the scenes as well, which is, uh, which

01:04:37.740 ends up turning people's hearts away from their brothers from veiled or vague accusations that

01:04:45.340 have no substance whatsoever and that's actually feeding a lot of what's going on publicly as well

01:04:52.680 is because of backdoor conversations that are poisoning the well against brothers well don't

01:04:58.180 you think part of it too um in a lot of the disagreement the tension that can let's stick

01:05:02.660 to like the reform uh christian camp that we're a part of it seems like one of the things that

01:05:07.340 can happen is like people have different styles. I remember when we first started working together

01:05:13.200 a couple of years ago, like Dan, you know, your style is very different than Brian and it's very

01:05:18.700 different than mine. And I think when we first started working together, there was a temptation

01:05:22.300 to say, my style is the only right one. And this is how it should be. And then over time, what I

01:05:27.740 realized is, you know, in friendships, as they evolve, you have, you know, a wallpaper like this

01:05:36.180 behind me that i never would have picked but you know what it's like i come to appreciate brian's

01:05:41.360 style and uh we we've joked about this but even haunted cosmos i never would have done that

01:05:46.120 podcast eric was like at the beginning he's like this is one of the dumbest ideas i've heard i

01:05:51.680 think this is going to be a huge failure and you should not do it we should not do this project

01:05:55.780 ben and i were like i think we're gonna do it i think it's gonna work and the more it's one of

01:06:02.540 things the more you explain it the dumber it sounds well and my favorite eric's credit i mean

01:06:08.280 like to be fair to be there no we're gonna tell people where atlantis was he's like we're a

01:06:13.680 christian podcasting media like you're gonna talk about atlantis eric trust us we're gonna talk

01:06:19.680 about atlantis what and i think the funny thing about that obviously the show's done well but

01:06:26.260 this is a good example of learning to appreciate differences like i always tell the guys now

01:06:31.340 because we, we all know that that was true. And I was like, no way we are not doing this project.

01:06:35.460 And now I say, I knew it would work from the beginning. I always believed in this. I always

01:06:40.000 believed. In fact, if I remember right, I think this was my, I think it was my idea. But I think

01:06:44.480 you can have that too, where it's like, um, you guys to, to borrow from, you know, Archdeacon

01:06:49.820 Ben Garrett. Uh, we talk about the Donagality of a place like with Michael Ward and planet Narnia,

01:06:55.080 like what makes the place a place? Everybody, you go to each of our houses, there's a Donagality

01:07:00.180 to our households with the flavor, you know, how your kitchen runs and how your wife runs the

01:07:06.460 kitchen, how your kids are, what kind of stories do you tell, the way that you pray. It's all a

01:07:11.800 little bit unique. And I think part of it is learning to appreciate those things and not saying,

01:07:17.720 well, they don't do it like us. Part of this too gets into what I would call, I think this is

01:07:25.220 actually one of the most controversial parts, is styles of cultural engagement. So if you're

01:07:32.980 in the CREC and you happen to be more liturgical, Doug Wilson's serrated edge has long put people

01:07:38.840 off. Him using the C word, Johnny Cash flipping off the camera, people are like, no, absolutely.

01:07:45.460 In other circumstances, people will say that we're too serrated edge, or I don't like the pattern of

01:07:50.900 the serration or i don't like this i don't like that i think cultural engagement is one of those

01:07:55.720 issues it's been done very poorly by the keller nuance winsome crowd for so long that i think now

01:08:02.260 that people are starting to do more of it it's just a really hot button issue brian yeah you

01:08:07.560 have this uh this flavor personality thing where um like when you form tribes and there's tribal

01:08:15.660 lines, you, you almost have a, like a predetermined, there's two buttons in front of you with any

01:08:21.220 person, tribe, church, network, denomination, whatever. One of them is the, like, I hate them

01:08:25.120 and I want them to die button. And the other one's like, I love them and they can never do anything 0.92

01:08:29.540 wrong. And they've never have done anything wrong. And here's some money. I know this. I know this.

01:08:34.920 Okay. And what happens is we get, we allow ourselves to be sorted into these buckets.

01:08:40.220 And this is a, an anti, this is a fake version of the friend enemy distinction, by the way,

01:08:44.740 um, where you, the friend enemy distinctions are a helpful heuristic, but this is, this is a fake

01:08:50.280 version of it where all of a sudden anything that this person does to culturally engage, we'll find 0.98

01:08:55.320 a way to hit the, I hate them. And I want them to die button in anything our people do. We're like, 0.99

01:08:59.360 ah, even if your first instinct is like, man, I really wish they hadn't said that, but I've got

01:09:04.360 to find a way to, to like act like I'm totally in agreement with, with that. And always thought

01:09:09.260 this, and really like, that's exactly how I would have put it all along and hit that button.

01:09:12.800 and the best example i can give you of this is that guy kevin johnson on twitter he's like the 0.60

01:09:18.540 purest platonic ideal of this kind of fool um where he will no matter what i say i literally

01:09:25.220 tweeted something about washing machines and it was like washing machines used to be less breakable 0.94

01:09:32.580 and now they're like all this environmentalism stuff and it makes them breakable and it's like

01:09:38.160 just true this is and everybody in the thread is like no that's true yeah my my 60s fridge runs

01:09:44.500 forever and the new ones break every two years but they cost three times as much i can't even

01:09:49.460 remember how he found figured out how to counter signal this but he screenshotted it as he does 0.91

01:09:54.560 and you know said something about how evil and stupid i am and this proves it it is a it's a 0.82

01:09:59.900 platonic ideal of this like of this exact thing and we can't do that like we have we we we can't 0.99

01:10:06.680 do that. It's stupid. It actually makes no sense. It discredits us over time. If I have a 1.00

01:10:13.280 predetermined two button response that just is based on who said it, who said it, right? So

01:10:20.960 how do we get out of this spiral? Like, how do we stop doing this? One of the things I really do

01:10:26.200 believe this is one of the most important things we can do is just voice our disagreement less.

01:10:31.020 like did you know the elites don't want you to know this you actually don't have to publicly

01:10:37.140 voice your disagreement about some brother group publisher or whatever when they do something you

01:10:41.780 don't like you actually don't have to say that you don't like it on the internet well i actually

01:10:45.960 think this is a really good point you can just not for example uh nsa runs a video johnny cash

01:10:52.620 middle finger becomes a big deal i saw that and i thought you know what even for you know eric

01:10:59.680 con this is a bit much eric con was like eric con wouldn't have done that i would not which is i

01:11:04.240 mean that's when you cross the line into the eric con wouldn't have done that bucket like i haven't

01:11:08.900 done i don't think i've gotten there yet no have i gotten there yet no yeah and so i was thinking

01:11:13.780 i was like i would not have done this i don't like it i don't agree with that strategy but here's

01:11:18.960 what i said i love nsa i love what they're doing i love moscow i'm just gonna sit this one out go

01:11:25.140 search the feed and i literally didn't say anything you'll find none of us saying anything

01:11:29.260 about it and all of us were kind of like i don't know that might have been as well now we are saying

01:11:33.260 something about it but just as an example but the point isn't that the point really is like just as

01:11:38.000 an example we pretty much all walked into the office the next day we were like i don't know

01:11:43.960 about that one i don't know about that one and and the other insight we're not gonna tweet about it

01:11:48.240 the other instinct here is that when you see things that you question and there's been very

01:11:54.100 prominent pastors in our circles recently where i've been trying to put this into practice i saw

01:11:59.140 things that they posted and i i thought i don't like that and or i think that's really dumb and

01:12:04.060 bad and so what i did was i texted them and i said hey what did you mean by this hang on let me make

01:12:10.420 sure i'm understanding you before i uh my fingers hovering over the post button on a 37 tweet thread 0.99

01:12:17.160 that i've written about how you're you're evil and stupid and i can't decide which is the more 0.99

01:12:21.460 prominent characteristic could you talk me out of it yes and so in in several situations like we did 0.99

01:12:28.460 we talked about it and you know what a lot of them i was like i still don't agree i still don't

01:12:33.180 think yeah but i think it was also just the reality of like okay that's fine you don't you're not

01:12:38.800 required to always voice an opinion i think that's one thing about our culture social media um you

01:12:45.600 see football players dan getting in trouble all the time because they're like like lebron james

01:12:50.000 you know basketball in this case but saying like everybody cares about my opinion all the time

01:12:55.080 And you're like, no, we really don't.

01:12:56.520 We actually didn't ever want your opinion on 90% of the things those reporters asked you.

01:13:01.180 Yeah, but some people, I think they're convinced their job is to grab passing dogs by the ears.

01:13:06.340 Yeah, that's like their job.

01:13:07.280 That's a full-time job.

01:13:07.920 Oh, man.

01:13:10.300 You know, related to this is that I think a lot of the issues in the discourse can actually tend to be people talking past one another because of that two-button issue to where we're not actually listening when people talk.

01:13:23.280 we're just thinking we've already sorted them into which bucket which button we're going to hit

01:13:27.420 and then we're thinking about the best meme or quip we can respond with and so um we're not

01:13:33.300 actually carefully evaluating in a steel man term what do they mean how would they support this

01:13:40.720 thing that they're arguing for what would be their premise one premise two premise three yeah and how

01:13:45.240 would i approach my my response if i disagree to those premises and well i think there's not a lot

01:13:51.700 of that happening no i think talking past each other is probably the biggest feature that leads

01:13:56.300 to greater conflict um you know it's tilting at windmills because it's straw manning you end up

01:14:02.300 arguing with something that either nobody holds or very few people hold and what's even funnier

01:14:06.640 about this eric is that once you start tilting at a windmill like no one holds this position

01:14:11.900 that you're straw manning because of the two button issue the people you're straw manning 0.99

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01:17:44.760 I think part of it too, so for example,

01:17:46.960 like if you want to characterize the Christian nationalist camp as a bunch of like white boy 0.95

01:17:52.020 summer Nazis who use ditty oil. I mean, like if you're going to really actually do that, 0.58

01:17:57.360 is it, is it honest and fair? Cause I think there are some crazies, but they probably represent

01:18:03.220 like less than half a percent of the actual people making the argument. So number one is

01:18:08.260 that intellectually honest. But the other thing is I think we had this experience at the conference

01:18:15.180 with uh joe rigney dr rigney where he he straight up asked us like what do you think about white boy

01:18:21.180 summer what's your view on it i'm all ears and he asked really thoughtful questions and then he would

01:18:26.520 say things like okay let me repeat that back to you so here's what i'm hearing and the thing i've

01:18:31.260 so appreciated about him is he's genuinely honestly trying to understand before he comes to a

01:18:37.660 conclusion about you and then we got to the end of it and we're like this is kind of our view

01:18:41.120 And he was like, well, that's great.

01:18:43.100 If it's that, then I have no problem.

01:18:45.500 Dr. Rigney's a great example of this.

01:18:47.840 Also, one of my friends up in Moscow,

01:18:50.220 I don't know if he wants to be named

01:18:51.420 on the King Saul podcast,

01:18:52.980 but he's an elder up in Moscow at Christ Church.

01:18:57.180 And there've been several times

01:18:59.640 where someone preached a sermon about Haunted Cosmos

01:19:02.600 and he called me and said,

01:19:04.180 hey, what did you think?

01:19:06.820 Did you hear about this?

01:19:07.620 And we're like, yeah, I heard about it.

01:19:08.560 Here's what I think.

01:19:09.100 And he's like, yeah,

01:19:09.600 I think that was really unfair. Here was my, I'm actually going to go talk to that person privately.

01:19:14.000 And he did. He, same thing with white boy summer. He was like, look, I don't get this. 0.68

01:19:19.020 We were at, I was at grace agenda and I was actually at his house in his yard. We're hanging

01:19:23.700 out. He's like, can you just, what is why? Like, this seems dumb just to be honest. And we talked

01:19:30.420 about it and we probably didn't agree like all the way out to the 10th decimal point at the end of

01:19:33.620 the day, but it was like, he was asking and he wasn't asking so that he would have time to think

01:19:38.700 of a way to dunk on me. He was actually asking and then listening to what I said and going,

01:19:43.980 huh, okay. Like, but what about, what about this? And it was, it was like, that is so refreshing.

01:19:50.080 Dr. Rigney is a great example of this where you've, you've so often find that a good 80%

01:19:56.920 of the perceived distance between parties, it was not real distance. It was rhetorical

01:20:02.920 overstatement it was hyperbole it was this person who likes what you said said this so do you agree

01:20:10.120 with them and it's oh hang on i don't even know what that is can you explain what you think i

01:20:14.280 believe but before i uh assent to it you know like this was one of the helpful things actually that

01:20:18.880 came out of the conversation with dr white was i was like okay people have said this about you but

01:20:24.260 let me just ask you the question if there are actual jihadists attacking you must you pray for

01:20:30.240 them and evangelize them instead of use the sword to defend yourself and he said no that's crazy you

01:20:34.580 would defend yourself and so like yeah you know it's one of those where it's like once you have

01:20:39.100 the actual conversation with somebody clarify the position actually listen and then you realize like

01:20:44.100 okay dr white also had some really helpful pushback i thought that he's like look i've

01:20:49.580 spent my life evangelizing muslims and he said i think you need to make a distinction between 0.98

01:20:54.560 the jihadist who wants to rape your women and kill the children you have to make a distinction 0.99

01:20:59.680 between that person and like maybe what we might call like a normie Muslim in America who is very 1.00

01:21:05.460 open to the gospel. That's a different category. And when I heard that, I was like, yeah, I would

01:21:10.080 agree with that. And that's reasonable. What's funny about this is like, take Apologia. We have

01:21:13.560 a lot of ties to them, a lot of friends. There's the Wade Orsini pastors and Apologia church in

01:21:18.960 Salt Lake City. So we overlap sometimes pastoral issues, which like, hey, this person from your

01:21:23.900 church is going to my, like, let's talk, let's figure this out. Same team, love Andrew Sancrant,

01:21:28.840 love you know all those guys and but it's funny that what could have happened from some spat

01:21:35.500 about the crusades again a historical event that happened like up to a thousand years ago and we

01:21:41.400 could then decide that we're not going to be friends with anybody from apologia ever again

01:21:45.520 here in the year of our lord 2024 where we actually live and that would have been i think

01:21:50.480 the technical term for it again is it would have been stupid for us to do that and instead it was

01:21:55.400 like okay dr white's going to talk to eric we're not going to agree we're not going to gloss over

01:22:00.560 everything agree on everything but we are going to agree you're a christian you're all christians

01:22:06.720 we're christians actually we're about 96 92 that's really sort of on the same team it's really funny

01:22:14.540 too like after talking to dr white sort of sort of building some sort of relationship i walked away

01:22:20.100 and it was really funny because i was like i actually really like james james white are

01:22:24.240 actually really similar. I really like James. Like, yeah, he's got differences, but I appreciate

01:22:29.980 them. You were going to mention a person. Avoid this is just to write clearly, like write and

01:22:35.520 speak clearly about what you do and do not believe and about what your issue is and is not. And to

01:22:40.860 do that in a sufficiently public way that people can know what you do and don't believe. So like

01:22:45.000 Rich Lusk is a good example of this. Another CREC guy, friend of Eric's, you know, he's written a

01:22:51.280 lot of good stuff on masculinity i think he did a book with athanasia athanasius press last year

01:22:55.720 i haven't read but it it sounds like a like a good book so he he's weighted lately into a lot

01:23:02.100 of the christian nationalism the the nations and ethnos and the the natural affections and

01:23:07.620 that conversation and i i don't i can't say that like every sentence rich luska has written on the

01:23:12.600 subjects i would i agree but what i really appreciate about it is that i know what he

01:23:17.380 believes well and he's very clear he's like hey let me cut through all of this like are we saying

01:23:23.020 this because that's normal like in and to the to the people that he in his tribe might have an

01:23:28.480 incentive to be like counter signal against he's like wait if the guys are saying natural affection

01:23:32.840 like it's right for you to love your people that's a good thing that's biblical like let's all stop

01:23:37.980 freaking out about that well i thought that was the reason you know that rich was doing a good job

01:23:42.520 of understanding his uh is it interlocutors interlocutors yeah that fancy word but but

01:23:50.420 like with steven wolf what you knew it worked because rich said if i hear you right this is

01:23:55.380 what you're saying and he had like several posts in a thread and steven said yes that is exactly

01:24:00.200 what i've been trying to say yeah that is a reasonable man who is and look rich has we've

01:24:06.560 texted you know he he's offered pushback in the past uh particularly on things like ecclesiocentrism

01:24:12.140 he's like i think you're maybe not understanding that properly and the pushback has been genuinely

01:24:17.100 helpful sure and i go oh yeah that's a good thing and even like politically he's like wait one thing

01:24:22.380 you haven't considered is what was going on politically in calvin's day so think about this

01:24:26.040 and then i walk away from it and i go yeah that is actually something we need to chew through

01:24:29.820 i don't know if i have an answer yet but but we'll do more reading dan i want to kick it to

01:24:34.220 you because honestly i think i've cut you off yeah four times i mean i've forgotten more than

01:24:40.520 i've said this this episode no one thing i really do appreciate was rich uh as i read through his

01:24:46.280 twitter threads i'm like oh yeah i agree with lat i think that's totally wrong you know i agree with

01:24:52.160 that that i would not put that way and i'm like you know what that was really refreshing i'm gonna

01:24:57.560 like him even though i don't agree with them he's like i like this but i like this because attacking

01:25:03.880 clarity in our time especially in in our sphere is very lacking at this point we try to be clear

01:25:11.680 but some men are much more gifted at it well and you you have multiple ditches you can fall in

01:25:17.740 like memes are actually not super clear about the content in every case of a position so a lot of

01:25:24.260 our guys like they're i think our guys are the best at memes oh if i just have to be honest with

01:25:28.740 everybody like i'm sorry everybody else planet you get a participation trophy but like the people

01:25:33.760 that are in our general sphere that listen to the king's hall like you guys let me look at the

01:25:38.880 camera you guys are so good at memes it actually scares me it actually scares me but that's one

01:25:46.520 way that you can actually fail to articulate what you really believe is by relying over much on the

01:25:50.980 meme um the other way and i think this is more like where doug can fall in a ditch a little bit

01:25:55.540 is that doug is so brilliant a wordsmith that he can get so chestertonian sometimes that i he's

01:26:01.780 chestertonian himself out of comprehension to the average mortal and i go i don't understand what

01:26:07.640 you just said some of the time so i don't know whether to laugh because that was a joke or if

01:26:13.460 it was like i think that's real dunk on me i don't know can you explain this to me like i'm five like

01:26:19.080 i'm fine yes and this was one of the quips but like the the wordsmith can turn into word salad

01:26:24.800 And so we, we have, and this is what I think is helpful about pushback too, is again, if

01:26:31.080 we make a point in the show and it's James White or it's Rich Lusk or it's Doug or it's

01:26:35.620 whoever and says like, Hey, this point, like you didn't get that right.

01:26:39.300 Because realistically, I know there's been at least one time during this show, I haven't

01:26:43.700 been able to find it, but where we were wrong.

01:26:45.880 What were I was wrong?

01:26:48.080 Somebody.

01:26:48.900 I mean, Eric, I don't know about you.

01:26:51.000 Hypothetically, it could have happened.

01:26:52.160 I know I've done it before.

01:26:53.760 Yeah.

01:26:54.160 I've committed a wrong before.

01:26:55.860 Really?

01:26:56.240 So I think another way to cultivate unity is to understand hierarchy.

01:27:00.700 Yeah, tell me more.

01:27:01.360 And to appreciate hierarchy.

01:27:02.640 Oh, I do appreciate it.

01:27:03.700 And so when you hold it, maybe, not when you're under it.

01:27:08.540 I appreciate hierarchy where I'm higher than others.

01:27:13.760 I must, oh, I was about to make a short joke, but I won't.

01:27:17.420 Anyway, so this has been really applicable to elders and pastors, you know,

01:27:23.300 but what about the common, you know, church member, uh, churchmen, you know, how do you

01:27:28.380 interact? And I think, and this is my instinct as well when I see disagreements. So a, you can say

01:27:33.960 like, Oh, this person is a brother. I'm going to interact with them and provide pushback. And

01:27:39.640 hopefully it's courteous and you're not cussing them out or something. Uh, so that's an option.

01:27:44.560 Another option is to say nothing, um, with the understanding. I think this is really what's

01:27:49.720 helpful in saying nothing is if you have the understanding of hierarchy. So when, for example,

01:27:55.900 we had mentioned the Johnny Cash middle finger thing and you're like, well, I wouldn't have done

01:28:00.080 that. By the way, I didn't have as much of a problem as it, as you other guys, but I kept

01:28:05.580 silent to myself because I didn't want to get in an arguing match over justifying that act. But

01:28:11.440 either way, I can look at that and say, I can look at that and say, huh, that was an interesting

01:28:17.480 decision well they have elders you know these guys are these guys are under leadership like if

01:28:23.780 if they're if they consider their legitimate hierarchy if they decide make a ruling that's

01:28:30.360 like no that was fine like yeah then that then then they can own that that's their bearing the

01:28:36.440 weight of responsibility they've got a session they've got a presbytery they've got a presiding

01:28:39.980 minister yuri brito that's there you go yep there you go there it is they can handle it i don't need

01:28:45.220 to adjudicate every single case that comes across my Twitter feed. So I think if you have that

01:28:49.780 mindset, uh, where, where the, the, the pitfalls are is when you get the people who have, like you

01:28:55.360 said, press the red button of this person is literally Satan and I hate them. It's like,

01:28:59.600 well, of course, of course they don't have any real hierarchy over them. That's not a real

01:29:04.480 denomination. Those aren't real elders. You know, they're, they're all posers. They're all

01:29:09.280 antichrists, you know, are you doing your napark impression? I mean, pretty much, but you can see

01:29:14.100 how if you just have a certain degree of respect for Christ and his church and for the hierarchy

01:29:20.760 that he's placed there and that there's the possibility that they have real ordained

01:29:25.740 ministers by God in hierarchy there, in authority, then you can just say, I don't need to say

01:29:32.740 anything about this because there's leadership that will address this and actually have weight

01:29:37.400 other than my 140 characters that I'm going to, oh man, blast them. So I think it makes it easier.

01:29:44.100 I think that's really helpful.

01:29:45.580 Maybe one of the places where we kind of like lead toward a close here is just practical steps for coalition building.

01:29:51.380 So some of these we've talked about, number one, if you have disagreements, maybe start with a phone call.

01:29:57.060 Don't start by poisoning the well behind the scenes.

01:29:59.500 Don't start by publicly blasting.

01:30:01.540 Maybe start by talking to a person, kind of figuring out what is actually going on before you start sending missives on social media.

01:30:08.660 The second thing we talked about was really recognizing how the algorithm works.

01:30:12.520 the thing i found really helpful about charles haywood and the netter or neoter as it kind of

01:30:17.860 got amended conversation no enemies on the right it's really about political coalition building

01:30:23.780 but one of the things i found really helpful about this when we destroy each other the actual

01:30:29.300 enemy wins so if theoden had imagine if theoden had actually gone to war with gondor

01:30:34.960 would they have defeated the orcs if he wins he loses that's that's correct so i think some of

01:30:41.920 it is saying, okay, we need to identify in this conversation who the real enemy is.

01:30:47.140 And there are real enemies as Dan, you know, we, you know, you contributed in the cold open, 0.99

01:30:52.020 but the point about there are people who want to cut your children's genitalia off 0.99

01:30:55.840 and Doug Wilson's not one of them. James White's not one of them. We're not one of them. 0.98

01:31:00.940 So being careful about how we make friend enemy distinctions and where we have some of these

01:31:07.020 conversations. The other thing, Brian, that we had talked about internally is doing a couple of

01:31:14.060 things. Number one, I'll let you talk about it, was really, I think, showing appreciation and

01:31:20.160 praying for these other camps and churches. Yeah, so we do this in our service, in our liturgy.

01:31:26.980 Most weeks, every week we're praying for a ruler, and then often, usually at least twice a month,

01:31:32.620 we're praying for other churches in our community and things like that as a part of our pastoral

01:31:36.660 prayer. And so it, one of the things that came to mind of just for my own personal practice that I

01:31:42.420 try to do, like I said earlier, is to pray for people that I really don't like, or when I,

01:31:49.280 they say something I really don't like is to actually stop and pray for them. Because I think

01:31:55.060 that Jesus, I think Jesus would be pleased with that. I don't do that all the time or perfectly,

01:32:00.740 But I genuinely, it helps me to remember like that friend-enemy distinction in the absolute

01:32:06.620 sense before I act or speak or say something that is not going to actually be helpful to

01:32:12.220 the cause of Christ ultimately.

01:32:14.380 So one of the things that we're going to do more is attempt to encourage folks in our

01:32:22.060 orbit to be praying for one another.

01:32:24.420 So you'll see us telling you, hey, let's pray for this person.

01:32:26.920 Let's pray for this church in a similar way that we do in our pastoral prayer.

01:32:30.600 We want to use whatever influence we have in a way that would foster Christian unity, even while, again, still being particular about where we disagree.

01:32:39.900 We think this is true, not this.

01:32:41.480 Let's, like we've told other people to do, speak clearly about it, steal men our opponents, and some of the time we're going to land on different sides on some of these issues.

01:32:48.940 But we want to do it in a context where nobody can accuse us of hating our brother and seeking their destruction.

01:32:55.720 I don't hate our brothers.

01:32:57.000 I don't want their destruction.

01:32:58.220 I want them to win because I want Christ and his people to win.

01:33:03.240 I want other boroughs to win.

01:33:05.240 I know it's not just going to be us politically speaking, even like as many Owen strand jokes

01:33:11.260 as I've made in the last year, I would be delighted if G3 and Ogden could have a truce

01:33:20.720 and do their thing.

01:33:22.200 G3 can do their thing and we can do our thing.

01:33:24.480 and we don't need to be like, I'd be, I would actually be quite delighted about that. That

01:33:30.420 wouldn't bother me. I wouldn't feel like I was losing something. Well, it, it, it, I agree with

01:33:35.880 you. And it leads to another thing that we we've talked about and are working on putting together,

01:33:39.720 which is a series of friendly interviews and conversations with people kind of on different

01:33:45.520 sides of things. Obviously, Steven Wolf would be one of those guys. Um, but we'll also talk to

01:33:50.960 james white about this and uh he said yeah he'd be game for that just friendly conversation they

01:33:56.180 did some of this with doug you know we're gonna wear some some really amazing looking sweaters

01:34:01.200 dan gets brightest colors i'm saying if we do this you get i'm gonna have i i mean i get to

01:34:08.620 wear a sweater i already committed you i was not told that i was gonna wear a sweater nor did i

01:34:13.340 say i was eric hasn't said it yet so let me say up front that i i will definitely be wearing the

01:34:17.900 sweater if eric buys it because i've seen coogie coogie prices fair no there's dude this will be

01:34:25.020 for after hours but seriously i've got an inside track on where to get the sweaters i think i know

01:34:29.760 who the inside track is i think does it rhyme with dr same bright it does kind of rhyme with

01:34:38.080 that kind of same yes but but i'm not arriving i think this whole idea of having conversations

01:34:43.940 conversations uh you know i like the way that james put it was he's like let's be men let's not

01:34:49.660 have a little foo-foo like we just agree on everything conversation let's be real about the

01:34:53.880 disagreements and then let's be friends and i was like yeah i think that would be great one of the

01:34:59.580 things i think when you say i won't debate a person or i won't talk to a person or that person

01:35:05.740 is beyond reasonable conversation the left does this all the time it's basically a way of treating

01:35:10.700 them as subhuman, right? When you say like, and I'm not even saying that we shouldn't have

01:35:17.040 categories of people that we won't debate. I'm not interested in debating somebody who's like

01:35:21.820 rabidly feministic pro-abortion, right? I think they're evil and I'm not going to even entertain 0.92

01:35:27.540 that. But again, this is where you have to carefully make distinctions. And I think in

01:35:32.960 tough issues, right? It's really important to be clear on the difficult issues where people are

01:35:39.960 like wait wait wait i don't understand this i have all this angst what did he just say about

01:35:43.580 churchill what did he say about the crusades what what is actually happening here so dan debates

01:35:49.440 which i know you'll be looking forward to and conversations with some of our friends see this

01:35:54.800 is i thought this was just an air con thing no i did not know dan burkholder was be going to be

01:36:00.200 engaged in a debate well i mean you're on the king's hall so debate's a strong word man debate's

01:36:08.540 strong word conversation oh okay i was gonna say if i'm in a debate i go for blood what we're gonna

01:36:13.160 do is no no seriously i can't hey when you don't have a good argument you uh what it ad hominem

01:36:19.580 attacks that that that here's what those don't work for me so it's just violence here's what we

01:36:24.120 do after we have the you know like the conversation debate thing we i think we should do this we

01:36:32.280 challenge them to a round of cornhole oh man against dan it's over dance from wisconsin that's

01:36:39.940 actually unethical he actually i think was born with like one of those bags in his hand it was

01:36:44.780 like jacob and esau but he had a cornhole he had a back in his grass i did i did just beat a a very

01:36:50.500 good player 21 to nothing so really yep but i told them for the sake of honor of their name i would

01:36:57.740 not mention it ever wow can you text it i'm not gonna say who it was it was kanye

01:37:04.140 i was not playing court hole with kanye that's weird but it would be an interesting

01:37:12.120 round yeah yeah uh brian as you think about uh some of the other things that we um could

01:37:17.560 encourage people with as we close things down here uh to not go into brother wars uh any final

01:37:24.100 thoughts on on what comes to mind strategies practical stuff to employ so the biggest thing

01:37:30.680 that i would want people who appreciate what we're doing and are like our people they're like yeah

01:37:37.100 let's go um would be let's actually keep that main thing in front of our eyes like what are we

01:37:44.760 actually trying to do again it would destroy my soul the idea of spending my life and strength

01:37:50.360 engaged in spiraling discernment, ministry, infinite loop argumentation with people who

01:37:55.720 are 80 to 90% overlapped with me. What a waste of strength, by the way. What could you build

01:38:00.420 if you were actually just using that strength to work together? It'd be so dumb. Or at least 0.99

01:38:05.320 just not fighting. Yeah. When you look at my sons and they're like punching each other or choking

01:38:10.320 each other, you know, various things brothers do, you know, every parent has this moment where

01:38:14.260 they're like, the things you could accomplish if you get along. And then they do it. And like for

01:38:18.920 afternoon there's a golden afternoon they like build a whole half pipe it's like once every

01:38:22.460 somehow with stuff that you didn't authorize them to use but you're kind of impressed like

01:38:28.180 the things you could accomplish if you just get along so so um i i would want to give my strength

01:38:34.200 to that to building christian coalition to building christendom which is requires coalition

01:38:39.720 definitionally that's what i want to give my strength to is building a people in ogden and

01:38:45.700 encouraging other people to build a people where they are and working together across disagreement

01:38:52.100 and differentiation in particularity. Like what I'm saying is that I don't want us to do the

01:38:56.700 globalist post-war consensus version where we actually demand everybody agree with me. And

01:39:01.580 we try to solve the issue of differentiation that causes conflict, the strong gods with

01:39:07.360 homogeneity. Everybody agree with me. Everybody do the same thing I'm doing. Everybody have my

01:39:12.500 exact mind. Everybody talk exactly like I'm. Yeah, if you disagree with me, it's violence.

01:39:16.520 That's the postwar consensus answer to the problem of nationalism, which was a problem

01:39:20.620 of the strong affections of national particularity and the fear that that was what drove conflict.

01:39:26.180 And it's like, no, God made a world full of differentiation and particularity. That's not

01:39:31.740 what drives conflict. Conflict is when you don't, you desire and you don't have, like go read James

01:39:37.140 again. So I want to give my strength to building lots of particular peoples and places and things

01:39:42.520 like that within the sphere of my influence to the best I can and not ever worsening, spiraling

01:39:49.280 discernment ministry type engagement with other Christians whom a lot of what they do is not

01:39:54.220 actually my business at the end of the day anyway. So I would urge that for our people. I'm actually,

01:40:00.180 that's what I'm asking for from other people, other groups or people or denominations, whatever

01:40:03.900 it is, I want all of us to have that same mind. Like if we can agree on something, I'd want to

01:40:07.780 agree on that. And to be for one another, to be praying for one another, and not to waste our time

01:40:14.060 and strength in needless brother warring when there is an actual war, both in the earthly and

01:40:21.460 the heavenly, that is extremely dire and important and timely for us to be giving our strength to.

01:40:28.560 Yeah, I think it's so important to understand, you know, the greater mission. If we destroy each

01:40:33.240 other like is you know a pastor told me this he's like like if if the crac and apologia and you guys

01:40:41.640 like people were watching that and they were distraught some of the interactions that were

01:40:45.700 happening and people are like if you guys can't get along who can like who can like we're up a

01:40:51.100 creek without a paddle so i think that again that was just my strategy was like okay well let's do

01:40:56.540 everything we can to to act like good brothers uh to one another dan i want to ask just final

01:41:01.840 closing thoughts? Yeah, I will. I can anticipate an objection to some of the things that we've said

01:41:06.700 about unity and wanting to, you know, essentially get along. And I can see the objection of, well,

01:41:11.900 you're not policing your own camp. Don't you see all the, the Anon army, you know, the meme makers

01:41:17.240 and stuff like that, how they're going crazy and they're, they're making all these attacks.

01:41:21.340 It's really convenient for you to say you want to be friends, but then allow all of these people

01:41:25.800 to actually attack your friends. And what I, what I will say is, first of all, you don't know whether

01:41:31.540 we're policing or not, because one of our principles is that we're not going to publicly

01:41:35.600 shame younger men, zealous men. We're not going to shame these men that are actually of high value

01:41:42.820 and have desire to do good work. We're not going to shame them. An older man or a man that has

01:41:50.240 authority to publicly shame someone else, another man, is an absolutely guaranteed way to lose their

01:41:58.460 heart. And so you're not going to see it. Rarely will you ever see any one of us publicly shaming

01:42:05.560 another man that's, you know, that's under authority. Would you agree with this? But I

01:42:11.440 think one of the principles that you're describing to is not punching down. Like we're not trying to

01:42:18.200 use whatever, you know, industry media thing the Lord has given us. We're not trying to use that

01:42:24.720 to hit the guys who are, you know, fixing roofs.

01:42:28.920 No, no, no, no, exactly.

01:42:29.940 And Eric is the best among us at doing this.

01:42:31.920 He'll text and call and message people on Twitter, you know,

01:42:36.660 and connections that he has like, hey, I would leave this stuff out of the

01:42:42.220 out of the videos and the memes from now on.

01:42:44.760 Like, come on, what do you actually think about that?

01:42:47.440 Just settle down about this or, you know, redirect your focus here.

01:42:51.260 You should read this, you know.

01:42:52.940 and so that's the sort of, uh, pushback. Um, and I guess, you know, um, of, uh, you know,

01:43:00.940 our own camp essentially. And this is what I said before is if you have a disagreement with a young

01:43:06.800 man or a small church or whatever it is, and your first move is to publicly dox them, you have lost

01:43:13.860 them forever. Yeah. And I can't blame them. So because that's worse than violence in a way.

01:43:19.140 Yeah, because it literally is like, I'm trying to destroy your reputation, which is your ability to make a living.

01:43:25.380 Yeah, to provide for your family.

01:43:27.100 To live well in society.

01:43:29.160 To tarnish your good name for the, and it's generational at that point.

01:43:32.940 I also want to clarify, because it's such a good point. 0.60

01:43:35.060 I want to clarify, I've said something repeatedly about not paying the Dengeld.

01:43:39.080 And primarily what I mean by this is refusing to play the leftist style denouncement game, right?

01:43:46.680 When people come to you and they're like, I need you to denounce these five people and I need you to do it by noon today.

01:43:54.340 Just on principle, I say, no, not doing it.

01:43:57.320 I'm not dancing for you.

01:43:59.860 Like I don't dance to that, you know, that drumbeat.

01:44:03.100 Because what you'll find is once you do it, once you, okay, I'll do the denouncement.

01:44:07.840 I'll just do it this once though.

01:44:09.480 Once that happens, you'll never be done with them.

01:44:12.680 And so for me, it's like, no, if I have friends who I think need correction, I will talk with them.

01:44:18.980 And I'm not going to shame them to your point publicly.

01:44:21.760 It doesn't.

01:44:22.760 Why?

01:44:23.640 It's often a rhetorical trap, too. 0.76

01:44:26.140 Like, denounce Nazism.

01:44:27.880 Denounce it.

01:44:28.780 And you're like, yeah, of course, I'm not a Nazi.

01:44:30.940 Not a big fan of Nazis.

01:44:32.240 Don't think Hitler was that great. 0.88

01:44:33.820 And they're like, oh, whoa. 0.99

01:44:34.860 But you said this.

01:44:35.880 Or this person that follows you said this.

01:44:37.840 Or you follow this person that says this.

01:44:40.260 And so it's a trap.

01:44:41.320 Well, I think this is the other thing.

01:44:42.920 It's not a good faith argument.

01:44:43.980 I'm refusing to denounce as a performative act for people on the left because that's what it is.

01:44:50.640 Like it's not for people in our camp mostly.

01:44:53.460 Yeah, and what we will do is, and as we have done, is clarify what we do and don't believe.

01:45:00.460 I will make – if there's public confusion about like, wait, does Brian think that Hitler was a great Christian prince, which I don't?

01:45:11.320 And people who are genuinely my friends

01:45:13.140 and like not leftists, they're like, wait,

01:45:15.560 but what do you, because people have asked me that.

01:45:16.800 I'm like, no, I don't believe that.

01:45:19.240 I'll clarify what I believe.

01:45:21.280 But what's funny is that even when you do that,

01:45:23.760 you find instantly, like I wrote a funny list

01:45:27.320 about things I, you know, reject.

01:45:29.500 I reject diet soda, you know, 0.58

01:45:32.380 Churchill's aggression in the war, Hitler,

01:45:34.520 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:45:35.260 People were like, so you think that Nazism

01:45:37.080 is the same as diet soda.

01:45:38.520 People were immediately like telling

01:45:40.100 that churchill is only one line lower than hitler on this list and i was like my brother in christ

01:45:45.460 diet soda was number one diet and you weren't concerned about that so maybe that would signal

01:45:52.240 that this was kind of supposed to be making fun of all of you who are demanding that we

01:45:58.240 denounce obvious things that we would not believe anyway so uh you know i thought we talked to joel

01:46:04.560 about this before too we were like yeah man what are you doing and i thought that was a really good

01:46:08.420 point he's like oh i'll clarify what i do and don't believe but we're not gonna we're not gonna

01:46:12.340 dance to the organ grinder like absolutely not that because it is never ending you get you take

01:46:16.860 one step and then they're like that wasn't enough let's give me 10 i get it now monkeys dance to

01:46:22.960 organ grinders that's right smart got it sharp took me a minute sharp over in that corner dan 0.96

01:46:29.660 i'm sharp in debates though there you go dan's like look out i will physically destroy you

01:46:35.680 I don't use words. 0.97

01:46:38.160 I use violence.

01:46:40.140 That's funny. 1.00

01:46:41.040 As his Viking ancestors also did.

01:46:44.240 But Eric's also been teaching me delegation.

01:46:46.320 So it's like, he make me mad. 0.98

01:46:47.820 Eric, punch him. 0.99

01:46:49.220 Yeah. 0.99

01:46:49.620 You know, I delegate.

01:46:50.680 It's Dan mad. 1.00

01:46:51.700 Eric, kill. 1.00

01:46:52.760 Somebody take care of this. 0.99

01:46:54.800 Dan, I wonder if you would just kind of close us down with a charge and exhortation for our listeners.

01:47:02.100 This is the first time they're getting to see your face as you do it.

01:47:04.660 So what a treat.

01:47:06.880 Look into their soul as you do it just so that they get the treat.

01:47:12.040 Okay.

01:47:12.980 Of the Dan stare.

01:47:14.840 I'll do it.

01:47:15.420 All right.

01:47:16.540 So as we said earlier, we are in uncertain times.

01:47:20.900 And what adds to the uncertainty is that you don't know who your friends are.

01:47:26.440 It's clear to us who the enemy is and what they're trying to do to us.

01:47:30.900 We don't know the future or the outcomes, but what makes it difficult is that we don't actually know who our allies are.

01:47:37.540 Are the people who are supposed to be our friends, are they going to turn on us?

01:47:40.860 Are they going to abandon us? 0.95

01:47:42.240 Are they going to stab us in the back?

01:47:43.920 And we do not know that.

01:47:45.200 But what I would call you all to do is to cultivate friendships, to not be the person who would stab their friend in the back,

01:47:52.860 who would attack at the first sign of weakness

01:47:55.060 and actually cultivate those allegiances 0.73

01:47:59.140 to Christian brothers

01:48:00.700 who have been purchased by the same blood of Christ

01:48:04.820 as you have been.

01:48:06.440 And so go in peace and fight for unity.

01:48:10.640 Man, I love that, Dan, by the way,

01:48:12.000 because that was your do it live moment.

01:48:14.620 Like that looked like a teleprompter,

01:48:16.760 but no, there was no teleprompter,

01:48:17.800 just pure genius.

01:48:18.680 Nor was there in the whole cold open.

01:48:20.720 That was all from me. 0.96

01:48:21.520 to be clear that was all from memory every single ass every word awesome yeah well great show

01:48:27.660 gentlemen dan thank you so much and to our listeners we want to thank you and those

01:48:32.820 watching we want to thank you and as always make haste slowly

01:48:51.520 Thank you.

01:49:21.520 The End

01:49:51.500 We have a great time in the after hours. I play hype songs, which Brian loves.

01:49:55.600 Sometimes we even talk about Brian's cut.

01:49:57.320 We talk about recent news on X and answer listener questions.

01:50:00.500 Overall, it's a great time, so I'd encourage you to head over to patreon.com slash thekingshall

01:50:06.500 if you'd like to support the show and get some extra content.

The King's Hall - October 04, 2024

No More Brother Wars

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