The King's Hall - The Albanian Braveheart： Skanderbeg, Ottomon Slave Trade, & Janissaries

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00:00:36.820 This episode of the Kings Hall Podcast is brought to you by Joe Gerasi with Backwards Planning Financial,

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00:00:56.600 In his book Defenders of the West, author and historian Raymond Ibrahim asserts that the single

00:01:08.700 most important institution of the 15th century Ottoman state was that of slavery. The Ottoman

00:01:14.580 Empire enslaved millions of white Europeans, which far surpassed the transatlantic slave trade

00:01:19.900 involving the black slaves. There were several purposes that Christian slaves served for the

00:01:25.200 Ottoman Empire, including sex slavery, which affected not only the women, but many of the men

00:01:30.500 and especially the young boys as well. This was closely tied to the practice of Devshirme,

00:01:37.080 which was the practice made by the Turkish oppressors of kidnapping sons from Christian

00:01:41.160 nations as a form of blood tax. Many of those sons, as we'll see more in just a moment,

00:01:47.580 would become janissaries, but would also be victims of sexual assault at the hands of their

00:01:52.320 Muslim lords. The other most obvious role for slavery was that it supplied skilled labor to

00:01:58.660 the Turkish workforce. There was great profit to the Muslim state in taking the best and brightest

00:02:04.080 from Christian nations and forcing them to serve the Ottoman Empire, but it also kept Christian

00:02:09.460 countries weak and subservient. This type of slavery made use of mentally and physically

00:02:15.440 gifted Christians as soldiers and administrators, government officials, and other well-trained

00:02:20.540 military leaders. Quite obviously, this type of slavery strengthened the Turks and, as Ibrahim

00:02:26.420 says, it was also meant to weaken and bleed dry the Christian nations. Man-stealing also reflected

00:02:33.480 one of the key changes in tactics for Turkish forces. Early conflicts between Christianity

00:02:40.540 and Islam were fought in traditional ways on the battlefield or through tribal raiding,

00:02:44.640 theft, and territorial expansion. As we saw in the episode of the Crusades,

00:02:50.280 wild horse charges from Muslim forces were often no match for the grinding discipline

00:02:54.780 and efficient order of Western armies. Over time, Islamic forces realized they would have

00:02:59.960 to adapt to Western fighting styles. They did so mainly by stealing European soldiers and

00:03:05.720 forcing them to fight in their armies. The Greek historian Dukas explains the original

00:03:10.740 fighting methods of the Islamic peoples. He says the following,

00:03:15.080 The nation of the Turks, more than any other, is a lover of rapine, that is, the violent seizure of

00:03:20.260 property, and injustice. This is true even against their own kinsmen. If their attacks are aimed at

00:03:26.400 Christians, what more need be said? If they hear the herald's voice summoning them to the attack,

00:03:31.420 they descend like a flooding river, uninvited, the majority without purse and foot pouch and

00:03:36.960 without spears and swords. Countless others come running, swelling the number of troops,

00:03:41.880 the majority of them carrying nothing but a club in their hands. They rush against the Christians

00:03:46.200 and seize them like sheep. They continue to do this every day." Because the Muslims quickly

00:03:53.400 realized that such primitive warfare was not as effective against Christian soldiers,

00:03:57.780 they decided to take European boys as slaves and then train them as warriors.

00:04:01.880 In order to compete militarily with the Europeans, they appropriated their methods of warfare as

00:04:06.620 well. These troops of Christians, turned Turks, became known as Janissaries, which means new

00:04:12.520 soldier in English. The Janissaries became the most feared component of Islamic warfare.

00:04:18.800 From a young age, Janissaries were trained as infantry shock troops. From the 14th century and

00:04:23.900 onward, all Christians from the Balkan region, which included Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks,

00:04:28.760 Macedonians, Romanians, and Serbians, were forced to make a blood tribute, payable only in their

00:04:34.840 own flesh. In other words, Christians were forced to send their boys, often as young as eight years

00:04:39.740 old, to serve the diabolical Islamic death machine. Of course, the blood tribute was

00:04:44.860 forced on pain of death, so no unwilling parents could avoid the tax.

00:04:51.000 After being stolen from their homes, the children were taken to the center of the Ottoman Empire,

00:04:55.840 where they were indoctrinated as Muslims and trained as soldiers. They were degraded to the

00:05:00.820 level of animals, according to chroniclers of that time period, and became fiercely attached

00:05:05.240 to the Sultan, proof that they were among the earliest prey to what is now called Stockholm

00:05:09.480 Syndrome. This condition is also known as trauma bonding, and is a psychological response in which

00:05:16.260 victims develop positive feelings toward their abusers. It's often linked to high-profile

00:05:21.820 kidnappings today and hostage situations, but it can also occur in other abusive situations such as

00:05:27.440 domestic abuse, child abuse, human trafficking, and abusive work situations. Not all of the

00:05:33.720 kidnapped children, however, were so easily indoctrinated, especially if they were older

00:05:38.160 children. Some of them would hold secret gatherings where they would affirm their Christian faith

00:05:42.960 together. As such, the Muslims planted spies everywhere among the young janissaries, and seldom

00:05:49.080 were they ever left unwatched. Even these atrocities committed by the Muslims have been whitewashed

00:05:55.300 and portrayed by Western academics as, quote, the equivalent of sending a child away for a

00:06:00.160 prestigious education and training for a lucrative career, end quote. What these revisionist historians

00:06:06.620 ignore is that this type of education, if you want to call it that, included being kidnapped

00:06:11.860 and sexually defiled regularly by Muslims, beaten and whipped for no reason, and suffering all sorts

00:06:17.720 of other evils. Such foolish statements made by modern revisionist historians are far from the

00:06:25.200 truth. Consider for example, this 16th century testimonial, quote, think ye of the heart-rending

00:06:31.820 sorrow. How many mothers scratch out their cheeks? How many fathers beat their breasts with stones?

00:06:38.100 What grief these Christians experience on account of their children who are separated from them

00:06:42.880 while alive? And how many mothers say it would be better to see them dead and buried in our church

00:06:47.520 rather than to be taken alive in order to become Turks and abjure our faith. Better, my son, that

00:06:53.320 you had died, end quote. But as with many events in history, the Lord would use this merciless

00:06:59.700 tyranny of Islam for a good purpose, as out of the Janissaries would arise one of the greatest

00:07:04.600 champions of Christ ever known. Out of the Balkan countries, Albania was the most targeted for

00:07:11.920 slavery by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans desired the handsome youths and pretty girls

00:07:16.900 that dwelt in that country. After raiding and pillaging for some years, the Ottomans fully

00:07:22.300 subdued Albania in 1415. Sultan Murad II took the nobles' sons as hostage to ensure the

00:07:30.020 subjugation of the country. One of these nobles, John Castriati, was forced to give away all four

00:07:36.160 of his sons in a brokered deal for peace. Three of the boys were killed by their masters, and only

00:07:41.540 one, George, who was ten when he was stolen, survived. Once taken to the Ottoman capital of

00:07:48.020 Andrianople, George underwent formal Janissary training. According to contemporary historians,

00:07:54.600 George was not even challenged by the Janissary training. He loved war as a child, and back in

00:07:59.940 his home country of Albania, he had spent many hours training every day at the craft of war.

00:08:05.380 He hardened himself from a young age, often sleeping outside in blizzards or in the incredible

00:08:10.440 heat. This is shocking, surely, for anyone, let alone a boy under the age of 10. The training

00:08:17.400 George received at the hands of the Muslims only fueled his passion for the craft of battle.

00:08:22.280 He rose very quickly in the ranks of the Janissaries, fighting everywhere he was needed

00:08:26.500 and never once losing a battle. He became a decorated Muslim general.

00:08:32.520 George passed the physiognomy test as well. He was a legendary physical specimen. He was tall

00:08:37.820 and slender and muscular. He had a powerful voice with black hair and fiery eyes. His strength is

00:08:44.180 equated to that of Godfrey Abouyon, for in fact his sword swing could cleave a man in two, and often

00:08:50.040 did. George's remarkable strength, leadership, and appearance caused the Muslims to give the

00:08:56.160 young man the nickname of Skanderbeg, which means Lord Alexander in English. The Albanians were said

00:09:02.780 to have descended from Alexander the Great's line, hence the name. The stories from Skanderbeg's life

00:09:09.060 as a Janissary offer insight into how formidable he really was. Once, a Muslim peer grew jealous

00:09:15.280 at Skanderbeg and his fame and challenged him as a result to a duel. Skanderbeg stripped off his

00:09:21.260 shirt and accepted the duel. Maren Barlitius, the main biographer of Skanderbeg, paints the picture

00:09:27.760 of Skanderbeg's impressive physique and prowess. He says the following, Skanderbeg, both by voice

00:09:34.580 and by countenance, betrayed a wonderful resolution and assurance. And the Ottoman

00:09:39.740 audience was impressed with his manly perfection. His arms looked as if nothing like them had ever

00:09:45.300 been seen. His neck was strong and somewhat bending, such as possessed by wrestlers.

00:09:50.540 His shoulders were big and marvelously spread. The color of his visage was fair and white,

00:09:57.020 and the cast of his eyes was straight and pleasant, without any blemish or imperfection.

00:10:01.120 During the duel, Skanderbeg struck the Tatar's head off with a single blow,

00:10:13.000 then proudly held the skull aloft in victory. Sultan Murad was impressed by Skanderbeg

00:10:18.800 and gave him privilege and status in his court. Soon, Skanderbeg was given command of a 5,000

00:10:24.700 eunuch cavalry regiment. After that, he commanded a regiment of janissaries.

00:10:30.240 In 1428, the Ottomans and the Venetians went to war. Skanderbeg's father, John Castriati,

00:10:36.340 and the Albanians quickly allied themselves with the Venetians, hoping to rid themselves

00:10:40.760 of the Muslim tyranny. Sultan Mirad raised a massive army, declared a holy war, and handily

00:10:46.860 defeated the Albanians, taking John Castriati's lands as well in the process. After the war,

00:10:53.400 the sultan increased the amount of slaves the Muslims were taking from the Albanians.

00:10:57.780 A few years later, in between 1433 and 1436,

00:11:02.280 the Albanians retook their home while the sultan was busy elsewhere.

00:11:06.400 Enraged, the sultan returned in 1436 and devastated the Albanian land,

00:11:11.940 again destroying John Castriotti's lands.

00:11:15.420 Castriotti had traded away his sons in exchange for the peace of his country,

00:11:19.240 and now he had neither sons nor peace.

00:11:22.300 He died shortly after the sultan retook Albania.

00:11:25.780 During all of this, Skanderbeg had been elsewhere, fighting for the sultan.

00:11:30.120 When a group of Christians approached him, asking him to return to Albania in Christianity,

00:11:34.800 he dismissed this as blasphemy.

00:11:37.440 After Sultan Murad resubdued Albania and John Castriati died,

00:11:41.320 the sultan made Skanderbeg the ruler of the Albanian city of Croia in 1438.

00:11:46.660 Ironically, the city was part of Skanderbeg's rightful inheritance,

00:11:49.780 as was the city of Dibra, which is where he relocated nearly two years later.

00:11:55.780 In 1443, John Hunyadi and the Hungarians began their long campaign against the Ottoman Empire

00:12:01.700 and Sultan Murad. On November 3rd of the same year, the Hungarians and Ottomans collided in

00:12:08.020 Serbia. Skanderbeg was there, leading a regiment of Ottoman troops. Then suddenly, in the midst of

00:12:14.560 battle, Skanderbeg led his men in a full retreat, and everyone was mystified. Seeing their brilliant

00:12:20.880 and invincible leader retreat, the Muslims were thrown into a fierce panic. It was a clever and

00:12:26.120 perfectly timed ruse, for Skanderbeg had turned on his former Muslim captors. In the ensuing chaos,

00:12:33.300 Skanderbeg escaped the Muslim army with 300 loyal Albanians. Before he left, Skanderbeg had forced

00:12:39.400 the sultan's secretary to send a message to the governor of Croia. The message was in the name

00:12:44.700 of the sultan and ordered the current governor to hand over Croia to Skanderbeg. Afterwards,

00:12:50.180 Skanderbeg put the messenger to death. Croia was centrally located in Albania and highly fortified

00:12:57.320 and also very rich. It would be instrumental in the retaking of Albania, which Skanderbeg clearly

00:13:03.300 new when he used clever trickery to take the city. On November 28, 1443, he arrived at Croia's

00:13:10.040 famous white castle and gave the governor of the city the sultan's decree. The governor immediately

00:13:15.740 handed over the city and departed for Adrianople. That night, Skanderbeg's warriors slipped over

00:13:20.920 the castle walls and slew the remaining Muslim garrisons. Skanderbeg's first action as ruler of

00:13:26.940 Croia was to raise his family standard once again, which was a double black-headed eagle set against

00:13:32.000 a red background. The taking of Croia was so important, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote

00:13:37.280 poetry about the event several hundred years later, in the 19th century. This is a portion

00:13:42.480 of the poem. The crescent banner falls, and the crowd beholds instead. Like a portent in the sky,

00:13:49.420 Iskander's banner fly. The black eagle with double head, and shouts ascend on high. For men's souls

00:13:55.460 are tired of the Turks, and their wicked ways and works. That have made of Akisar, the white castle,

00:14:01.120 a city of the plague. And the loud, exultant cry that echoes wide and far is, Long live, Skanderbeg.

00:14:09.100 The next day in Croia's Cathedral, Skanderbeg officially proclaimed himself a Christian

00:14:13.340 and the avenger of his family. Before making a public reveal of his true intentions,

00:14:18.960 Skanderbeg's mind had often been known only to a few. He knew that any slip he had made in the

00:14:23.900 presence of a leader in the Ottoman Empire, and he would have been killed as a traitor.

00:14:28.440 In fact, Skanderbeg had been a Christian his entire life,

00:14:31.440 but had simply bade his time waiting for the moment to strike.

00:14:34.860 He later said of his own predicament that,

00:14:36.640 I hardly dared to trust myself with my own conception of my plans.

00:14:42.740 After crossing into Albania, an event which Ibrahim likens to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon,

00:14:48.160 Skanderbeg was not sure his countrymen would support his rebellion.

00:14:51.680 Much to his excitement, however, it was exactly the opposite.

00:14:55.840 About his countrymen, Skanderbeg said this,

00:14:58.000 It was not that I put arms in your hands, for I found you ready in arms.

00:15:03.420 I found you everywhere, bearing the signs of liberty in your hearts, in your faces, in your swords, and in your lances.

00:15:09.420 And as most loyal teachers and guardians ordained by my father,

00:15:13.280 you have put the scepter in my hands with no less faith and diligence

00:15:16.740 than as if you had kept and preserved it especially for me even unto this day.

00:15:21.280 and you have brought me by your effort and careful care into my ancestral procession of

00:15:27.020 croia without shedding any albanian blood end quote a contemporary source during the life of

00:15:34.340 skanderbeg was konstantin michelevic who said that the reason sultan mirad defeated the albanians so

00:15:40.880 easily was that one looked on while he was defeating another ibrahim refers to albanian

00:15:46.180 discord as a chronic disunity. Skanderbeg was aware of this fact, and so on March 2nd, 1444,

00:15:53.780 he gathered the feudal lords and nobles of Albania in Alessio at St. Nicholas Cathedral.

00:15:59.420 At this meeting, Skanderbeg lamented the Christians' gullibility at the hands of Muslim

00:16:03.340 plots and treachery, and emphasized a need for unity among Christian brothers in order to defeat

00:16:08.640 this great enemy of Islam. Skanderbeg gave his father as a chief example of Christian gullibility.

00:16:15.160 He said, quote,

00:16:15.880 I would to God that the credulity and light beliefs of us Christians

00:16:19.260 would at once come to an end,

00:16:21.280 and that we would at once wax weary of the treachery of the Ottomans, end quote.

00:16:26.920 Skanderbeg also knew that war would be bloody.

00:16:29.680 Later in their meeting, he said this,

00:16:31.860 All men generally will call me cruel and will detest me,

00:16:34.960 and I cannot think without horror,

00:16:36.900 as a new author of wars and perils and of bloodshed and murder,

00:16:40.480 whereas they ought rather, be it said without boasting,

00:16:43.100 to call me the preserver of their liberty, end quote. Now here is talk of a man's man.

00:16:49.960 Skanderbeg understood what the consequences of his actions would bring. He knew the cost of his and

00:16:55.200 his countrymen's freedom. Death would be on the Albanian doorstep, and cowards everywhere would

00:17:00.200 say that blood was, well, on his hands. But confident and competent, Skanderbeg asserted

00:17:05.420 that he knew he was doing the righteous thing. He was actually the liberator of the Albanians.

00:17:10.900 He knew liberty and freedom would have a price,

00:17:13.020 and all who were unwilling to pay it, well, they were cowards.

00:17:16.680 So he would pursue the righteous cause, even if much blame fell on his own head.

00:17:21.480 To conclude his talk, he did not end by slandering the nobles.

00:17:25.180 Instead, as all great leaders do, he encouraged them to glory in a positive tone.

00:17:29.600 Up then, he cried, let us levy and muster our soldiers,

00:17:32.720 and let us make known unto all ages to come that we are men worthy of a Christian nation.

00:17:40.180 Skanderbeg then formed an alliance with the Albanian aristocracy known as the League of

00:17:44.780 Alessio. Skanderbeg was immediately chosen to be the commander of the armies. Now that he had the

00:17:50.680 support of the nobles, Skanderbeg turned to rallying the people of the villages who would

00:17:54.460 serve in his armies. Due to Skanderbeg's charisma and deep personal belief in his own cause,

00:18:00.100 his army grew quickly. The army was mostly filled with peasants, farmers, highlanders,

00:18:05.040 shepherds and cowpokes. All new recruits were chosen for their physical stamina, their mental

00:18:11.320 alertness, their family background, their deep religious belief, and above all, their love of

00:18:15.800 freedom. In Skanderbeg's army, he had three branches, cavalry, infantry, and guerrilla.

00:18:22.000 The purpose of the guerrilla branch was to confuse and terrify numerically superior enemies like the

00:18:27.460 Turks. It did not take long for the entire country to take up the process of army building with its

00:18:32.920 zealous righteousness. One historian said this, blacksmiths and craftsmen, like their predecessors

00:18:39.240 of biblical times, literally began beating plowshares into swords. Almost overnight,

00:18:44.700 they most excitedly produced bows, steel-nosed arrows, lances, halberds, arquebuses, pikes,

00:18:51.720 and axes. The very sharp swords and daggers which they created with loving care would still be hot

00:18:57.320 when thrust into the eagerly awaiting hands of Skanderberg's puny army, end quote.

00:19:02.260 By May of 1444, Skanderberg's army was 8,000 men with a 10,000-man reserve.

00:19:08.840 It was an impressive feat to gather an army in such short time,

00:19:12.080 yet still minuscule compared to the hundreds of thousands of well-trained Ottoman soldiers,

00:19:16.040 which would no doubt be on the way.

00:19:17.980 If the Albanians stood any chance, they would have to use guerrilla tactics

00:19:21.420 and rely upon their unconquerable fighting spirit.

00:19:24.520 The first test of the Albanians' new army came in June of 1444.

00:19:31.220 Sultan Murad signed a peace treaty with King Ladislaus III of Hungary,

00:19:35.760 then turned to Albania to put down the revolt of his previous protégé.

00:19:40.260 40,000 Ottomans were deployed to Debra.

00:19:43.760 Skanderbeg told his men to take up arms,

00:19:46.160 to break the chains of so long a servitude and bondage,

00:19:49.300 and to drive the enemy from our soil.

00:19:51.340 With 15,000 men, Skanderberg went to engage in battle with the Turks.

00:19:56.940 As some of his men quivered in fear in the face of such a great army,

00:20:00.840 Skanderberg said that all who wished to go home should leave,

00:20:03.640 as those men were, quote, unworthy of the air he breathes, end quote.

00:20:08.720 Skanderberg said, quote, I will judge your merits when I see your swords smoking with the blood of the Turks, end quote.

00:20:15.100 Skanderberg gave the impression that his army was smaller than it was

00:20:18.400 by lighting very few fires and having his men speak in low voices.

00:20:22.760 When the Turks charged them on June 29th,

00:20:25.160 the Albanians disbanded quickly and retreated into the mountains.

00:20:29.340 Characteristically arrogant,

00:20:30.760 the Muslims over-pursued their enemies with reckless abandon.

00:20:34.500 Skanderbeg had lured them into a trap.

00:20:37.160 With his nephew Hamza,

00:20:38.580 Skanderbeg and 3,000 Albanian horsemen

00:20:40.700 plunged into the disorderly Turkish ranks.

00:20:43.700 The Turks were completely surprised.

00:20:46.460 The ambush turned into a bloodbath.

00:20:48.400 As the battle continued and the Albanians grew more comfortable fighting,

00:20:52.180 their general slaughter of the Muslim forces increased.

00:20:55.560 Only 120 Albanians had perished that day, compared with the 22,000 Turks who met their demise.

00:21:02.280 For every Albanian slain, roughly 183 Turks were killed.

00:21:07.940 The battle was a resounding success for the Albanians

00:21:10.980 and caught the attention of several European magnates as well.

00:21:14.420 Pope Eugene IV saw Skanderbeg as a potential lightning rod

00:21:17.980 for Christian resistance to the Muslim yoke. King Ladislaus III of Hungary sent Skanderberg

00:21:23.420 a congratulatory letter saying, what can be more glorious than this victory? Skanderberg thanked

00:21:30.000 him, extolling him as a fellow defender of the faith, and he also criticized European disunity,

00:21:35.360 which left countries like Albania and Hungary to bleed by themselves.

00:21:40.780 Skanderberg then moved to join Ladislaus to fight the Turks at Varna, but he was blocked by the

00:21:45.880 Serbian ruler George Brankovic, who had a peace treaty with the Sultan. Aware of the threat

00:21:51.940 Skanderbeg posed to his peace, Brankovic prohibited Skanderbeg from passing through his land.

00:21:57.880 As a result, the Christians were defeated at Varna, and Laodislaus was decapitated.

00:22:03.980 Enraged, Skanderbeg ravished Brankovic's land, burning and pillaging everywhere he went.

00:22:09.220 The Muslims, as Skanderbeg well knew, used a very effective divide-and-conquer strategy

00:22:15.740 against the Christians.

00:22:17.900 Murad would grant a peace treaty to one Christian kingdom if they would refuse to support their

00:22:22.240 Christian neighbors.

00:22:23.700 In time, the sultan would surround, strangle, and retake whichever kingdoms remained.

00:22:28.880 Again, it serves as a grave warning for Christians today, who can be so easily provoked into

00:22:34.080 attacking and weakening each other instead of banding together against a common enemy.

00:22:40.180 Throughout 1444 and 1445, Skanderbeg made various inroads against Turkish occupation.

00:22:47.540 It was said that the possessions of the Sultan were the revenues of Skanderbeg.

00:22:52.080 In late 1445, Skanderbeg defeated a Turkish army four times as large as his own.

00:22:58.260 Skanderbeg won several other skirmishes throughout 1445, enough to keep him on the Sultan's mind.

00:23:04.840 Even though Sultan Murad had won a stunning victory at Varna, he remained frustrated by

00:23:09.240 Skanderbeg and referred to the Albanians in his letters as pig-headed. Sultan Murad tried to win

00:23:16.220 Skanderbeg over with guile and words when his armies failed in Albania. He wrote in one letter

00:23:21.420 to Skanderbeg, Mend your ways, you graceless man, and expect not further whether my indignation will

00:23:27.100 break out. Let not these trifling allurements of your good fortune at defeating the Turks

00:23:31.660 so puff up your foolish desires and sharpen your conceits, end quote.

00:23:37.120 Next, Sultan Murad expressed concern for Skanderbeg's soul since he had turned from

00:23:41.840 the Islamic religion. After that, he offered Skanderbeg a full pardon if he returned to

00:23:46.700 the service of the Sultan. Skanderbeg was not such a fool as to fall for the Sultan's tricks.

00:23:53.080 He had spent his entire life in Turkish company and was accustomed to their trickery,

00:23:57.160 lies, and treachery. Upon seeing the Sultan's letter, Skanderbeg merely smiled. He responded

00:24:04.280 on July 12, 1445, writing, quote, Truly Murad, although your immoderate railing might move a man

00:24:11.100 of greatest patience to intemperate speech, yet I impute it to your advanced age and partly to

00:24:16.620 the waywardness of your nature and the rest of your conceived grief, which I know you can hardly

00:24:20.740 moderate. And rather for that reason, I have not set down myself to contend with you in foul and

00:24:25.500 unbecoming language, but with arms and the just fury of war, end quote. Skanderbeg also said that

00:24:32.400 the sultan's concern for his soul was ironic, since the sultan was a studious defender of a

00:24:37.240 most damnable error, as he called it. Skanderbeg finished his letter by saying, quote,

00:24:43.280 Therefore hereafter cease your angry threats and tell us not of the Hungarian fortune at Varna.

00:24:48.300 Every man has his own resolution, and every man a particular providence of his own actions.

00:24:52.800 And so will we, with patience, endure such fortune, as it shall please God to appoint us.

00:24:58.580 Meanwhile, for direction of our affairs, we will not request counsel of our enemies,

00:25:02.580 nor peace from you, but victory by the help of God. Farewell."

00:25:07.240 Skanderbeg charged Murad with grave humiliations, which included the fact that the sultan had

00:25:13.780 sexually defiled him as a young boy, a fate very common for other janissaries.

00:25:19.040 One contemporary chronicler noted that Skanderbeg, the son of John Castriotti as a child,

00:25:24.780 had attended the sultan's porte, had been the sultan's young lover,

00:25:28.740 which is one obvious reason Skanderbeg had so long planned his escape.

00:25:33.660 Although it has been conveniently left out of the history books written in modern times,

00:25:37.700 the Turks had a notorious penchant for pederasty.

00:25:41.620 As M.J. Akbar writes,

00:25:43.580 the Christians were particularly aghast at the open homosexuality.

00:25:48.060 This was the singular most important reason Christian parents feared the blood tax.

00:26:03.400 Often they would mutilate their sons to prevent them from being included in the Janissary ranks.

00:26:09.160 Mirad did not immediately move upon the Albanians.

00:26:12.680 But, unfortunately for Skanderbeg, his fame and renown grew so much

00:26:16.480 that even the nobles of Albania were growing jealous of him. The same was true of the Venetian

00:26:22.320 government, which resented Skanderbeg's new and immense power. The Venetians tried to assassinate

00:26:27.780 Skanderbeg in 1447, though the plot failed. Because of this treacherous plot, however,

00:26:33.760 the Albanians and Venetians would go to war. The jealous Venetians made a partnership with

00:26:38.760 the Ottomans to try and stamp out the Albanian star. In turn, Murad led an army of 80,000 soldiers

00:26:45.540 to fight at Svetigrad, the crucial fortress of eastern Albania. Skanderbeg's nephew Hamza led

00:26:52.760 the Albanian forces against Murad there, while Skanderbeg fought the Venetians on the other

00:26:57.560 side of Albania. Skanderbeg made short work of the Venetians, then rushed back to aid Hamza,

00:27:03.300 where his nephew was under siege. Once he arrived there, Skanderbeg was challenged to a duel by

00:27:08.520 Ali Perez Fasha, an Ottoman commander. Although his lieutenants pleaded with him not to do it,

00:27:14.540 the 45-year-old Skanderbeg accepted the challenge.

00:27:18.540 The men charged each other on horseback.

00:27:21.480 Skanderbeg swiftly slew his opponent, as he always did in single combat.

00:27:26.360 But the duel had been a distraction.

00:27:29.040 During the fight, the Turks had poisoned the wells around Svetigrad,

00:27:32.860 eventually causing the city to capitulate.

00:27:35.900 Sultan Murad was unable to capitalize, however,

00:27:38.380 as he had to turn and face Jan Hunyari from Hungary immediately following his victory.

00:27:44.540 Once again, Skanderbeg was prevented from joining Hunyadi by the Serbians.

00:27:49.920 Skanderbeg was positioned just 30 miles from Kosovo,

00:27:53.180 but sadly, Hunyadi and his army were decimated by Sultan Murad.

00:27:58.100 Murad turned his full wrath towards the Albanians.

00:28:01.860 He besieged the fortress of Croia with a vengeance.

00:28:05.240 While 1,500 men defended the city,

00:28:07.920 Skanderbeg ordered the rest of his men to engage in guerrilla tactics.

00:28:11.960 The siege dragged on for eight months, and yet still the Albanians refused to quit the battle.

00:28:17.580 Sultan Murad, disheartened at the never-ending strength of Skanderbeg, died of humiliation.

00:28:23.940 The Sultan's men lifted the siege and returned home, defeated.

00:28:27.600 The victory was yet another key moment in the life and campaign of George Castriati,

00:28:31.480 a.k.a. Skanderbeg, Lord Alexander, defender of the faith.

00:28:36.700 The siege of Croia was perhaps the peak of Skanderbeg's campaigns.

00:28:41.040 Several more times he defended the city from siege, and he won time and time again.

00:28:45.840 In 1451, Skanderbeg married Donica, the daughter of a powerful Albanian noble,

00:28:51.060 who was a freedom fighter against the Ottomans.

00:28:54.060 Skanderbeg, in turn, was more powerful than he had ever been.

00:28:58.020 In his wisdom as a leader, and despite the country's newfound peace,

00:29:01.400 he urged his countrymen to stay alert and fit for war.

00:29:05.920 He did not want them, as so often happens, to be defeated by victory and grow complacent.

00:29:10.920 He warned his countrymen that they were growing soft and slothful.

00:29:14.340 He said, quote,

00:29:15.080 We no longer have any reason to abandon our arms and let our wanted virtue lay asleep and forgotten.

00:29:20.960 We must not stay indoors and dwell in pleasures and grow corrupt and effeminate, end quote.

00:29:26.500 And so, under his Spartan leadership, his armies resumed their military training and war preparations.

00:29:31.820 Then, as Skanderbeg had predicted, in 1452, the Ottomans under Muhammad II sent two armies, numbering 25,000 in total, into Albania.

00:29:45.020 It was another opportunity to display his military prowess, and Skanderbeg intercepted both armies and on the same day soundly defeated them both.

00:29:54.060 The next year, Skanderbeg crashed into a new, unsuspecting Muslim army in the midst of a severe thunderstorm.

00:29:59.720 storm. Caught completely off guard, some 3,000 Turks were butchered by Skanderbeg's men.

00:30:06.580 Once Ibrahim, the Muslim commander, was captured, Skanderbeg cut off his head and displayed it on

00:30:12.060 a pike, which is exactly what the Muslims had done to the Hungarian king Ladislaus III at Varna.

00:30:19.700 It seemed as if Skanderbeg would lead the Albanians to freedom after all. Unfortunately,

00:30:25.080 during the coming years, Skanderbeg would be betrayed time and again by Albanian generals

00:30:29.940 who defected to the Muslim side. As modern journalist Christopher Hitchens once pointed

00:30:34.960 out, the barbarians never take a city until someone holds the gates open to them. Such

00:30:41.020 was the case in Albania, in which unprincipled nobles could be bought out for a small price.

00:30:47.340 In 1467, Skanderbeg summoned a meeting at St. Nicholas Cathedral with what remained of the

00:30:53.480 Albanian nobility after so many years of treachery and war. The league which he had formed some 23

00:30:59.840 years earlier was in shambles. There, tragically, at the age of 63, Skanderbeg contracted the plague,

00:31:06.880 the same sickness which had claimed the life of John Hunyadi. Skanderbeg, who was considered

00:31:12.500 the Albanian Braveheart, died on January 17, 1468. The West had lost its great defender.

00:31:21.120 After Skanderbeg's death, Albania quickly capitulated, one city after another.

00:31:27.260 And yet, as he lay dying, Skanderbeg remained the ever-devout Christian.

00:31:31.940 He said the two most important things in a man's life were to adore God by serving him faithfully

00:31:36.980 and to shed one's blood in the service of his Christian countrymen.

00:31:41.040 He gave thanks for many successful campaigns against the bloodthirsty Turks.

00:31:45.820 Then he said this,

00:31:46.800 end quote. He went on to give a final warning to his countrymen,

00:32:15.720 and especially those in places of leadership.

00:32:18.860 He said, quote,

00:32:20.440 Before my soul departs from my body and before I leave you,

00:32:23.780 there is one thing of which I find it necessary to admonish you and to plead with you.

00:32:29.060 Until now, during my lifetime, you have endured all suffering

00:32:31.680 for the safety and dignity of our Christian religion and our country.

00:32:36.500 By these means, you have won the favor, honor, and admiration of all the princes of Christendom.

00:32:41.920 Even hereafter, when I am dead and gone, let that be the only and the whole desire of your hearts.

00:32:48.040 All things, I can assure you, will fall out happily for you as long as you continue steadfastly united

00:32:53.820 and as long as you put the public and common good above your own personal interest.

00:32:59.160 But have no doubt whatsoever that the Ottoman tyrant will seek to cause disunity among you and to divide your forces.

00:33:06.960 He will use many plots and devices to turn you one against the other.

00:33:11.020 And when he sees you are at variance with each other, he will in the long run oppress you one

00:33:16.160 by one and utterly consume and destroy all of you. As soon as he hears of my death,

00:33:22.060 this enemy will endeavor ceaselessly to reach that very goal." A more grave warning could not

00:33:29.540 be made, either to the Albanian nobles or to men in places of leadership today.

00:33:34.860 The enemy will seek to divide you so that it may conquer you.

00:33:39.100 When we examine the leadership within the church today,

00:33:42.220 we find this is exactly what our enemies have been doing,

00:33:45.400 sowing discord, false teaching, and disheartening Christians

00:33:48.820 from banding together to fight a common enemy.

00:33:51.900 Once prominent voices for righteous causes,

00:33:54.700 well, they have sold out to the highest bidders.

00:33:57.560 Will we finally hear the warning of this great Christian king from centuries ago?

00:34:02.880 Skanderbeg's legacy was one of a great Christian man,

00:34:05.520 a brilliant military leader, and a prince who devoted himself to his people for over 25 years.

00:34:12.700 He was a staunch defender of Europe and of Christianity. Even his enemies feared his name.

00:34:18.900 He died in glory, one of the greatest Christian heroes to ever live, and a man of robust, courageous faith.

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00:35:07.220 The King's Hall podcast exists to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world.

00:35:12.580 well gentlemen welcome to this episode of the king's hall podcast i am one of your hosts

00:35:27.580 eric khan we're joined today by pastor dan berkholder hello dan how are you uh i'm doing

00:35:35.120 really really well i'm very excited that's good yeah why well because we just received

00:35:43.780 our first shipment of our new book honor their father thy fathers by zachary garris

00:35:51.360 we just received our first delivery and i have to say i am impressed with myself

00:35:57.860 3 000 copies was more than i thought it would be yeah i'm really glad that i helped so much

00:36:03.840 because otherwise I think you guys would have had trouble carrying them all.

00:36:07.520 I did notice you were absent.

00:36:09.560 Absent.

00:36:10.140 Yeah.

00:36:10.340 We were unloading the truck.

00:36:12.060 Yeah.

00:36:12.360 That's so sad.

00:36:13.520 Well, I don't, I don't remember that, but.

00:36:15.640 Brian Sauvé, the Frenchman.

00:36:16.760 Frenchmen are not known for like, you know, carrying heavy things.

00:36:21.020 Um, you know, mainly because we're too busy punching horses to death.

00:36:25.220 That kind of thing.

00:36:26.500 Yeah.

00:36:26.940 Common, common dub.

00:36:28.800 Gentlemen, we're gearing up for the conference.

00:36:31.540 Very excited next week.

00:36:33.180 Yeah.

00:36:33.400 We're going to have close to a thousand people here, Brian.

00:36:35.960 We are.

00:36:36.640 We're going to like right now, it is looking like it could be a four figure conference in terms of the number of attendees, which is insane.

00:36:44.580 Because when we got our first venue lined up, they booked it out from under us.

00:36:49.380 And we were super bummed because they were like, oh, we had a returning person come back.

00:36:53.580 They get priority in booking.

00:36:55.020 And that venue only seated 800.

00:36:57.740 And we have more than like we have over 900 people that I know of right now.

00:37:02.440 so speaking of the conference though if you guys aren't able to make it we did want to highlight

00:37:09.620 two ways that you can access the live stream because we are going to have a live stream of

00:37:14.260 all the talks that's happening dr stephen wolf joel webben jcha day me i'm glad that my nickname

00:37:22.580 for jcha day is stuck as it should yeah j chase davis if for any of you guys who are normies and

00:37:28.060 don't know um joe rigney i think i might have said can't remember haunted cosmos live you can

00:37:34.580 get a live stream ticket at our website new christened impressed.com slash conference if

00:37:39.420 you go to select your ticket there is one that says live stream only it's like 30 bucks to get

00:37:43.980 the whole weekend um but also i would actually recommend if you become a patron of any of our

00:37:51.420 shows bright hearth hard men podcast the king's hall haunted cosmos then we'll be posting our

00:37:58.800 live stream link for all patrons to those channels as well so that's even better because then you get

00:38:05.340 all the benefits of being a patron supporting the work that we do here at new christendom press

00:38:09.700 and you get to live stream the conference and brian there is a concert yes there is as well

00:38:16.460 ben garrett will be performing yep ben garrett will be performing a 45 minute monologue of just

00:38:23.100 his thoughts that actually sounds like a letdown truly i will i will be playing the congos in the

00:38:29.200 background is that's a country do you mean congas no it's definitely a congo no it's a conga drum

00:38:37.680 is it congo a country the congo where they okay it may or may not be conga it's a conga i know

00:38:45.780 Congo is a country and it's going to be defrauding the entire country or the Congo, but the way I

00:38:53.220 play the drums, he's going to be playing them. They will be Congos. Oh man, guys, it's going

00:38:58.280 to be great. We're looking forward to it. The Brian Sove concert is going to be amazing. Be

00:39:02.280 prepared to cry, to sob, to weep. I really hope that people are sobbing. Yes. Yes. That will mean

00:39:10.220 I've succeeded. Winnie's song will come on. Eric, what are you playing? I'm playing a bunch of

00:39:15.060 psalms or is it a secret hearth song stuff i will be playing i will say this i will be playing

00:39:20.840 several songs including at least one original song that i have never performed or released

00:39:26.660 is it called delia by johnny cash that's actually a song by johnny cash oh common mistake

00:39:32.340 what you're saying is this is going to be a song that didn't make the cut no it's from a future

00:39:38.580 so that is excited to hear it join up yeah well i'm very excited gentlemen for the conference

00:39:49.100 dan by the way you'll be there i will and you're going to be issuing a charge yes yes it's the last

00:39:56.920 all of you all are guilty you thought you'd come away from this conference without any feelings of

00:40:02.700 guilt even though you're reformed calvinist you should know that you're all guilty under the

00:40:07.600 mighty hand of the lord no i won't we didn't say that paul washer was giving the final

00:40:11.980 no america is disgusting closing remarks you're like i'm talking closing remarks i'll probably

00:40:19.100 use a story i don't know we'll see a story great i love it i'm looking forward to it

00:40:23.300 oh one of the things i'm looking forward to gentlemen is this episode we have the one and

00:40:28.260 only skander bag skander bag what a great name i've been walking around the office saying come

00:40:35.960 on skanderbags let's go take care of business for days now that's such a good name yes and

00:40:42.700 speaking of skanderbag where i actually want to start is with the congos yeah that is the slave

00:40:47.840 trade oh okay yeah i mean that was like that once again eric i want to point out your segways remain

00:40:54.040 sterling sterling yes that's right paralleled so uh this actually begins with one of our patreon

00:41:00.260 listeners we were talking about of course um in this episode about the arabic and ottoman slave

00:41:06.420 trade which i don't know about you guys did you hear about that one in public school you know i

00:41:11.100 uh can't say that i did eric it was actually bigger than that atlantic slave trade lasted

00:41:16.220 over a thousand years wow sounds real bad yeah it's really bad so this is from a patreon listener

00:41:22.800 he said this and he provided links in the show notes so become a patreon so you can read all

00:41:27.400 the links that were provided we don't do the research for free here okay wait didn't you just

00:41:32.240 say it was listener you know what never mind just don't think we don't care we get our supporters

00:41:37.380 that's right so he said this in short between 1525 and 1808 there were around 400 000 africans

00:41:46.320 brought to the united states and that's the total of around 12 million over 400 years that were

00:41:51.440 brought to the entirety of the americas he says this while there was nothing noble about the

00:41:56.160 slave trade. Those 400,000 have roughly 30 million descendants today. So that's important.

00:42:04.900 There were no eunuchs made, and we'll see why that's important. They weren't starved and

00:42:09.100 literally worked to the point of death. In contrast, the Ottoman economy and other Muslim

00:42:14.580 empires were almost entirely based on conquest and slavery. So just between 1450 and 1700,

00:42:21.200 they took around 2 million slaves from Russia, Poland, and Lithuania.

00:42:25.800 This does not count the slaves from Croatia, Albania, Greece, and the West,

00:42:29.840 in Spain, France, or Italy.

00:42:31.560 Brian, your people.

00:42:33.000 Yeah, my poor people being enslaved by the Muslims.

00:42:35.940 Very sad.

00:42:36.580 He says the highest premium, of course, was on blonde European women,

00:42:40.440 usually from modern-day Ukraine area, who were used as sex slaves.

00:42:45.080 This does not even count the millions of black African slaves

00:42:49.160 brought and made into eunuchs by the Muslims was, by the way, a common practice.

00:42:55.020 So, gentlemen, I want to start here.

00:42:56.540 The Arabic slave trade was far larger and lasted far longer than the transatlantic slave

00:43:01.940 trade, a reality that often goes unnoticed or perhaps disregarded intentionally today.

00:43:07.320 And I want to ask you guys why you think that is.

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00:47:26.520 reform design partner. Doesn't fit the narrative. That's the first thing. Doesn't fit the narrative

00:47:33.920 because if you look at this whole project that we've been doing with looking back in history

00:47:39.980 specifically and trying to recover the best things from the first Christendom and honoring our

00:47:45.760 Christian fathers, then you'll find that your whole public school education, the common media

00:47:52.880 narrative and everything like that, the entertainment, we've all been catechized and

00:47:57.620 are swimming in those waters of essentially white guilt, European guilt, making you feel

00:48:04.420 shame, weaponized empathy, all of these things for all of the evils that Christianity has

00:48:10.580 perpetuated.

00:48:11.700 And so it doesn't fit the narrative to say, well, I mean, yes, that was bad.

00:48:16.100 There are 30 million descendants now of the African slaves in the United States.

00:48:22.880 nobody says, but they probably have it better than they did if they were to remain in Africa

00:48:28.760 right now. Nobody says that. And then it also, it doesn't fit the narrative to say,

00:48:33.860 look at the slave trades around the world, especially with Islamic countries. Why did

00:48:38.240 they have so many more slaves than Western countries is because they were so brutal

00:48:43.720 to their slaves that their replacement rate was so much higher. They had to replace so many more

00:48:49.900 slaves actually your your buddy bob the yeah bob from speaker's corner we're set to have him on in

00:48:55.660 a few weeks here yeah on the show but you see the muslims actually bringing this up well you know

00:49:01.200 westerners you had the slave trade and then he goes into this whole talk about the ottoman slave

00:49:05.740 trade and the arabic slave trade far more brutal i mean in every one of these uh uh biographies

00:49:12.340 that we read all of the the different crusades and histories you'll see a common thread when it

00:49:17.860 comes to islamic slaves is that the primary reason in which they're gaining slaves are for sex slaves

00:49:24.860 and and i find it somewhat interesting if you think why what were his slaves used for not to

00:49:30.480 justify slavery you know that's not the episode for any any of the moralities or the ethics around

00:49:37.800 slavery um but you see america the american slave trade the slave trade of the west was used

00:49:44.740 primarily for building and cultivating and for progressing for economics yeah things like that

00:49:50.880 what are the what do islamic countries primarily use their slaves for and it's for their base

00:49:57.100 pleasures they're not based in a good way like like horrible pleasures uh to perpetuate their

00:50:03.580 sin and things like that they're not building with these slaves they are actually just using

00:50:09.280 these slaves for debauchery. And so again, I'm not saying slavery, good or bad on this episode,

00:50:15.840 we'd talk about that later, but if you just look at the uses of slaves, it's very different. And so

00:50:21.320 it makes sense that the replacement costs would be so much higher. Also how horrible it would be

00:50:26.540 to be a slave in Islamic countries. Yeah. We read that in the episode in the cold open, but

00:50:32.900 But many parents would castrate their sons to try to prevent them from being taken and made into janissaries.

00:50:42.080 Because, you know, imagine this is a Christian parent.

00:50:45.260 You have an invader coming into your country, taking your sons and daughters and knowing that they're going to be turned into people who are fighting you.

00:50:53.320 I mean, this is crazy.

00:50:54.540 And knowing the sexual debauchery that's going to happen.

00:50:58.080 I don't know. You guys have probably seen the Shane Gillis skit, which is not very clean where he's like, you know, it's more terrifying than like an enemy invading you is if they were gay, gay Vikings. It's like Vikings. Think about that. You know, you see the Viking ships offshore and they're coming and you're like, oh no, the Vikings are coming. You know, my, our wives and our, our daughters are at risk. And then they hoist the rainbow flag and he goes, oh no, that's pretty much.

00:51:25.640 It's just the Islamic armies that are like that.

00:51:29.140 They're like gay Vikings.

00:51:30.420 If you look at the way that the cultural norms and cultural mores in North America, Christian North America, even surrounding slavery, it was frowned upon to have sexual relations with your slaves.

00:51:45.300 Like that was something that was hushed up, kept on the side.

00:51:48.060 the whole narrative about thomas jefferson and children he's um you know probably sired

00:51:53.220 kind of illegitimate half slave children that he sired that was something that had to be kept in

00:51:59.460 the dark but in muslim culture it's fully in the open it's it's a part of their constant reward

00:52:05.400 it's a reward it's part of their whole ethos there's nothing in the dark about it sex slavery

00:52:10.840 was completely common and totally permissible it was just yep let's let's go for this all together

00:52:16.360 So you even see the differences between, I mean, something like Stonewall Jackson and his concern for the black slaves in the South to be educated Christianly, to have a Sunday school.

00:52:28.800 He advocated for all sorts of Christian activity and evangelism of the slaves, whereas when you get to like the Janissaries, it was brutal brainwashing, brutal rape, brutal torture to make them into expendable soldiers that you could have the double edged sword of not only military conquest, but the demoralizing effect of sending the children of a nation back to go and wage war.

00:52:58.640 against them we even see in our story about skanderbeg today that his older brothers were

00:53:04.760 poisoned because they refused to convert yeah to uh islam yeah and then we have skanderbeg it's

00:53:12.580 interesting brian because as we said the arabic and ottoman slave trade notorious for using boys

00:53:18.840 for sexual purposes yeah the amount of gross pedophilia going on of course skanderbeg a

00:53:24.820 victim to this. True with

00:53:26.860 Vlad the Impaler, one of

00:53:28.820 my... One of Eric's all-time

00:53:30.680 favorite people. Honestly.

00:53:32.940 But it's really interesting

00:53:34.820 because even the Europeans referred

00:53:36.800 to the rampant homosexuality of the Arabs

00:53:39.000 as the Turkish disease.

00:53:41.640 So it was common knowledge back

00:53:42.920 then that homosexuality was rampant.

00:53:45.640 I just, again, want to ask

00:53:46.900 why do you think this aspect of Islam

00:53:48.900 is underreported?

00:53:50.840 And as I'm asking that question,

00:53:52.300 I've talked to a lot of warfighters

00:53:54.760 soldiers who've come home even from the more recent campaigns and they'll say the same thing

00:54:00.120 still rampant there are sayings overseas that women are for babies and boys are for pleasure

00:54:07.180 among the islamic people it's absolutely evil what's happening in these in the the asymmetry

00:54:15.160 between the narratives is that when you have a god operating and there are multiple levels of this

00:54:21.640 you have blasphemy laws and you have forbidden types of speech.

00:54:26.680 You're not allowed to talk about the problems with your God or your religious

00:54:31.140 ideology and the priests of your, your religion.

00:54:34.020 But you are of course able to do anything that you can to wage intellectual and

00:54:39.360 cultural war against and physical war against your enemy.

00:54:42.160 So if Christianity is an enemy of the left and things like sodomy and Muslims,

00:54:49.160 Muslims, multiculturalism, the like unfettered immigration of foreigners, including Muslims into the West to aid in their total conquest, then you'll you start to go, oh, of course, that's what's happening.

00:55:03.760 I mean, it's the same reason that you'll never hear the mainstream media talking about the astronomically higher rate of sexual child sex abuse by gay men, not just Muslim.

00:55:13.740 I mean, like just gay men in America have an astronomically higher rate of sex child sex abuse.

00:55:20.660 But they don't want to talk about that.

00:55:21.860 They're not going to talk about that.

00:55:22.820 Of course, they're not going to talk about that for the same reason.

00:55:26.060 They're not going to talk about lesbian domestic violence or Muslim.

00:55:31.360 Basically debauchery.

00:55:32.800 So, I mean, it's all just a part of the.

00:55:37.080 Cultural and religious warfare being waged against Christians by the demonic and satanic left,

00:55:42.300 because what they want to do is demoralize Christians.

00:55:46.080 They want to tell Christians that they are evil people

00:55:48.920 that are fundamentally come from an evil people.

00:55:51.600 And so magnify all of their sins and faults and invent new ones as well.

00:55:56.040 Invent new ones that are, you know,

00:55:57.980 either by calling something that's not actually evil,

00:56:00.660 evil or by inventing new evils that they didn't actually do.

00:56:04.160 And then, of course, they will whitewash over and they'll say,

00:56:06.920 no, Islam, it was a bastion of scientific and mathematical learning

00:56:11.340 and multiculturalism and look how tolerant they were of minority populations and they'll say

00:56:18.360 things like this with a completely straight face while not mentioning the janissaries

00:56:24.520 or this or the slave trade that by the way continued all the way up till today the first

00:56:30.360 war america fought was the barbary pirate wars and they were slave slavers that was what they did

00:56:35.900 And in, I think, Tunisia and these, you know, Barbary Islands, they were just wicked slavers that would man steal and abuse.

00:56:45.040 And they were just they were just generally bad people.

00:56:48.560 Yeah, it's really interesting, Brian, because when you think about like, how do you conquer people?

00:56:52.300 I think the Muslims understood this.

00:56:53.940 So they would use tactics that you mentioned demoralization.

00:56:57.280 Right. But there's also terrorism.

00:56:59.440 Yep. Right. Brutality, stuff like this.

00:57:01.500 so when you think about the janissaries being the stolen christian children who are then

00:57:06.400 indoctrinated by muslims and used to attack christian peoples right got to be a hard pill

00:57:12.540 for christian parents got to be demoralizing do you see any connection today with the education

00:57:17.560 system and what's going on with quote-unquote child stealing with christian children some

00:57:23.240 reports saying the sbc loses up to 80 of its kids is there a parallel here with the demoralization

00:57:30.700 of the left in America. There's something about when your daughter, you pay an exorbitant amount

00:57:36.040 of money to send your daughter to a public university and she comes back and is a pink

00:57:40.200 haired orc and she hates everything that you stand for and is actively making war on you.

00:57:45.860 Yeah, Steve Dace just posted about this. Interesting. One of his listeners had he was

00:57:50.340 talking about higher educate universities and liberalism spreading, particularly, I think,

00:57:55.700 among female, young female college students. And I think it was a father who listened, sent in,

00:58:02.280 yeah, this happened to me. My, my daughter came back from her first or second semester of college

00:58:06.880 and she was some list of trans identified, blah, blah, blah, all these complete mental illnesses,

00:58:14.140 basically that, that, you know, left dispositions, but I repeat myself. And she was essentially

00:58:20.140 disavowing his entire you know everything that he had attempted to transmit to her and i think

00:58:26.020 you're right that this is not a new tactic and christians actually need to see it for what it is

00:58:31.640 they need to see it as a part of warfare and not just as um like oh there's some differences of

00:58:38.000 opinions but we need to be a melting pot of ideas some of this weaponization of americanisms

00:58:44.080 to essentially get the right to capitulate,

00:58:48.900 get the right to essentially surrender and say,

00:58:52.560 oh yeah, you know, it's not that I don't want those ideas

00:58:56.640 to be promoted in the universities or people to have those.

00:59:00.020 I would die for your right to express your opinion.

00:59:02.860 But the left is like, thank you.

00:59:04.840 We will now get you to send your own children

00:59:08.340 to our indoctrination centers

00:59:10.120 and take over all of primary, secondary, and post-secondary education.

00:59:16.080 I mean, functionally, it's like a modern-day Janissary.

00:59:19.060 They're going to push the leftist cause.

00:59:21.220 They're going to fight that culture war.

00:59:23.540 Even to the point where it's like, yeah, the child sex abuse rates in public schools are much, much higher than the Roman Catholic Church, for example.

00:59:31.320 Nobody talks about that.

00:59:32.180 And I bet how many articles can you find about priests doing bad things to kids, which is evil, but not that much about public schooling?

00:59:40.680 So if that's true, Dan, and there are situations in which the, you know, Orrin McIntyre has called it, we've been reading this, the total state, if the total state is trying to steal your children and turn them into, you know, essentially Janissaries that are warring against you and your culture, what strategic steps would you should you take?

01:00:02.180 to ensure that that doesn't happen and it's sort of a tied to that but the question is how far

01:00:06.700 would you go how much would you be willing to change your life in order to make sure that that

01:00:12.280 doesn't happen yeah well i mean a lot of the work that we've done here i think speaks to that where

01:00:18.540 you know what is the primary indoctrination center for children it's schooling i mean they're being

01:00:25.640 discipled you know all education is discipleship not all discipleship is education but they're

01:00:31.160 being discipled and conformed into a certain image. They're being catechized to look a certain

01:00:36.520 way. And that's why, you know, this in this Steve Dace example, where this father sent his daughter

01:00:41.960 to a university and she comes back, you know, completely radicalized by the left. And so

01:00:48.500 I don't think there's any step that you could take within the law of God that would be too

01:00:56.040 radical. I mean, you should order your entire life around this, protecting and insulating your kids

01:01:02.020 from the left. And this is why I find it particularly strange. When we look out at

01:01:07.800 Christianity as it exists today, and you find traditionally conservative bulwarks within the

01:01:14.560 Christian faith that continue to pander to the left, they continue to court leftist favor.

01:01:21.640 And this doesn't make sense to me. This doesn't make sense to me. The Proverbs, do they not say that bad company ruins good morals? And so it is very strange to me that you find a majority of, you know, of the Christian church today that continues to think the way that they win is to pander to the left, to participate in leftist events, to support the left.

01:01:47.660 i i don't i don't understand this i i don't understand it at all because uh there is a

01:01:53.300 reason that the sbc and other denominations it's not just them are losing most of their kids and

01:01:58.240 it's because they continue to participate in the left's education discipleship catechism their

01:02:03.920 whole thing their education system my wife is telling me about a popular children's tv show

01:02:08.940 uh bluey i think it's bluey and the premise of the show is like mom works dad stays at home

01:02:16.440 and works remote and is around the kids when he can and um bluey kind of calls the shots whatever

01:02:24.220 bluey is a dog or something like that but just the framework of the house is like mom goes out

01:02:29.200 and works and is the breadwinner and dad stays at home and this is popular with uh around christians

01:02:35.420 and such i've never seen it so maybe it's a fine show but uh just the framework of it is like oh

01:02:40.720 man it can it's just everywhere you look you know the the common narrative right now on netflix

01:02:46.340 is like it's going to the lgbtq agenda is going to be shoved down your throat whether you like

01:02:51.740 it or not we're going to continue to make leftist garbage propaganda for your entertainment and

01:02:57.400 shove it down your throat and we continue to participate in these things and so it it you

01:03:02.220 end up having a couple of knee-jerk reactions right if you don't think through this carefully

01:03:06.480 the first thing is to bunker like that's the first thing bunkering can be good like having

01:03:13.820 a private school are you bunkering your kids against uh public school are you protecting them

01:03:19.720 absolutely yeah good absolutely you should do that yes absolutely i mean just like a barracks

01:03:24.640 is for soldiers and they shouldn't be around nightclubs you know you're going to protect them

01:03:29.960 you're sheltering them you're bunkering them from from outside influence because you want them to

01:03:35.360 think a certain way and react a certain way speak a certain way think a certain way all those things

01:03:39.760 but the wholesale like um i don't know if this is a big issue anymore i don't get out a lot but

01:03:46.480 back when i was growing up the homeschool movement that i was familiar with was complete

01:03:51.260 sheltering of children like that's where you get the stereotype of children that can't speak to an

01:03:56.200 adult they can't reason they can't get a driver's license because they're too terrified because they

01:04:01.720 actually haven't they've been sheltered in all of the wrong reasons along with the right reasons

01:04:06.560 That's a baby with the bathwater sort of thing.

01:04:08.880 And so that can be a real danger is sheltering your kids completely and not

01:04:13.300 preparing them for the world.

01:04:14.720 But the best way to prepare them isn't to throw them into the deep end of the

01:04:17.980 pool with all of the,

01:04:18.900 the trannies and the,

01:04:20.020 and the homos and,

01:04:22.140 and the furries at public school.

01:04:24.180 Um,

01:04:24.660 it's,

01:04:25.080 it's actually,

01:04:25.680 there is a good bunkering and a bad bunkering.

01:04:28.700 Uh,

01:04:29.060 and I don't know if you guys can think of any other examples of a knee jerk

01:04:32.520 reaction in which,

01:04:33.460 um,

01:04:35.120 you know,

01:04:35.360 people,

01:04:35.700 maybe do harm to their kids when they think through this issue?

01:04:41.280 Yeah, that's a good question.

01:04:43.040 Maybe as you're thinking about that, I want to,

01:04:45.980 because I think there's something tied to this,

01:04:48.140 which is what I was thinking when you're talking about this.

01:04:50.960 You can't get our situation unless you have regime Christian leaders

01:04:56.480 having sold out their people.

01:04:58.620 And it's tied very closely, I think, to the Albanian situation with Skanderbeg

01:05:02.140 because he said, you know, as we covered,

01:05:05.100 Like, but throughout his life, it was the Albanian nobles who were siding with the Turks or other Christian leaders who were siding with the Turks and opening the door.

01:05:14.760 So I think part of the demoralization, Brian, seems to come from, you know, we even have lots of Christian groups that you would think were like Christian and reformed and everything right now who are basically saying any use of power for Christians to defend themselves, to build up communities, to to have political power.

01:05:32.420 It's evil.

01:05:33.560 It's absolutely horrible.

01:05:35.100 we shouldn't do it. And so what are they doing? They're demoralizing. They're encouraging you to

01:05:39.380 be a doormat. Um, just walk me through that. Do you, do you see the same problem happening today

01:05:45.200 with basically our nobles betraying us? Yes. I mean, you've got the Ottomans, the Turks,

01:05:52.540 they're taking children. Why? Because children are very malleable. You can shape them into

01:05:58.560 whatever shape you want and they will become the most radical and unquestioning robotic followers

01:06:04.720 of a movement if you can get them young see this in like the child soldiers in africa and this has

01:06:10.440 been done before in multiple different ways so this is happening if you look at a parallel in

01:06:15.500 our education system taking our children they're not having their own so they're taking ours they're

01:06:20.580 aiming to own the institutions where children are shaped and uh what do we have amongst our elites

01:06:27.440 well often what we have are christians saying asinine things like oh well what happens if

01:06:33.200 we take all of our children out of the schools they'll stop influencing them they'll stop being

01:06:37.780 salt and light don't you want to train your children to be missionaries and i'm like no more

01:06:41.900 than i want to train then i would send my child to be a janissary soldier to convert the muslims

01:06:46.060 like absolutely not so they're providing cover so often for um these practices that basically

01:06:55.060 convert our children into kamikaze super liberal warriors who then go back into their families

01:07:01.640 And think about like that father with his tranny, you know, converted daughter.

01:07:05.700 What is a bigger piece of bait on a hook to get an older man to apostatize or embrace things like liberalism?

01:07:12.300 His daughter.

01:07:12.860 Than his daughter.

01:07:13.980 Feeling like he has to choose between Christ and his own children in affirming them.

01:07:18.960 This happens all the time.

01:07:20.280 So they're sending them back to convert families and soften them.

01:07:24.520 and what they're doing is they're basically getting us to see everything through negative

01:07:31.020 image glasses where instead of saying that's the evil and we need to fight against it with

01:07:37.860 whatever means necessary we need to start schools we need to pull our kids out homeschool we need

01:07:42.760 to like absolutely say no to public schooling and all of that kind of process and public universities

01:07:48.440 and this sort of thing and instead it's the people who say that that you shouldn't do that who are

01:07:54.540 called legalists and you're you're you're evil and you're bigots and you're religious extremists

01:08:00.880 and you're you know all this sort of epithets that we get called all the time well it's it's

01:08:05.960 interesting too because uh at the end of his life skanderbeg warned the albanians he said because

01:08:13.140 he here's the thing he knew the muslim tactic right because he was trained as a janissary he

01:08:18.020 was trained under the sultan he knew exactly what their strategy was and he said the way they win

01:08:23.400 is they use a divide and conquer strategy so what they would do is they would take a christian nation

01:08:28.480 and they would say hey we'll give you peace if you betray your neighbor

01:08:32.580 we i promise we won't pick on you and then skanderbeg was wise to it he said listen what

01:08:39.320 they do is they do that until you're the last one standing then they'll surround you too

01:08:44.180 So, Dan, it seems like one of the things that we have to have in our class of quote unquote nobility or elites, people who are ruling, is sort of an invincible courage.

01:08:54.660 You can't be dumb enough to think that if you give in to the left.

01:08:58.480 I mean, I look at guys like Tim Keller.

01:09:00.040 I look at the Gospel Coalition.

01:09:02.260 This is exactly the game they played forever is, well, we'll make peace with the New York Times and then they'll be nice to us.

01:09:08.900 And then at the end of the day, what happened to TGC?

01:09:12.080 what happened to like keller's movement it's dead it's over it's cooked it's done it's it's

01:09:16.880 cooked you know put a fork in it but it's like it's been conquered even now though it is more

01:09:22.680 than it just died it was conquered it was subverted it still exists it just exists as an

01:09:26.820 operatic arm of their leaders allowed it to happen like tim keller john piper the gospel coalition

01:09:33.280 they had a lot of power and money at their disposal and they didn't use it for righteous

01:09:39.420 causes right so my question is how do you convince leaders today how do you convince pastors how do

01:09:46.320 you convince institutional leaders you have to fight yeah you're never going to appease the left

01:09:52.260 into a true armistice this is why the other day i can't remember what it was we were talking about

01:09:58.820 i think i was talking about the civil rights i was talking about um like what what are we

01:10:03.880 actually proposing as the christian right the kind of vocal christian right the very first thing i

01:10:10.360 said we need to do is to regain the political will to act in our own national interest and

01:10:16.000 that's like what is a nation that's what it does that's the very thing that the uh left and the

01:10:21.840 soft evangelicalism is trying to prevent is from they're trying to basically make that into a sin

01:10:28.720 they'll come at it from multiple vectors

01:10:30.980 they'll say oh you're

01:10:32.400 you're like

01:10:33.740 what is it you're like Gondor wanting

01:10:36.880 to use Tolkien or Sauron's ring

01:10:38.680 the one ring of power

01:10:40.380 any power is evil power

01:10:41.780 they'll use all kinds of vectors of attack

01:10:44.880 to get oh you're being

01:10:46.580 you're ethnically vainglorious because

01:10:48.800 you're trying to promote this

01:10:50.940 you know you're trying to have the political will to act in your own

01:10:52.880 national interest and then particularly when you

01:10:54.920 start to say things like and when we talk

01:10:56.960 about a nation it can't just be

01:10:58.460 an idea driven nation this very weird 20th century concept of america as an idea the

01:11:04.700 propositional nation that you can join america just by assenting to a list of propositions and

01:11:09.360 oh by the way those propositions turn out to be quite malleable and you can change them over time

01:11:13.760 and we'll pretend like they never changed like this is what all the founders meant channies

01:11:17.480 from the beginning of course that's what they meant right right so you say oh when you recover

01:11:22.720 the idea that the nation actually means a people and that like the heritage americans you know that

01:11:27.400 if you want to come and become

01:11:29.620 a part of the U.S., you ought to adopt,

01:11:31.620 you need to be Protestant, adopt

01:11:33.560 our language and our customs and our

01:11:35.200 morality and all these different things.

01:11:37.880 And instead of that,

01:11:39.480 what so

01:11:41.520 often happens right now in this conversation is like

01:11:43.620 even the idea that was floating around

01:11:45.540 the other day that like a Christian Caesar

01:11:47.280 is the same as saying a gay Christian

01:11:49.120 is honestly just nonsense.

01:11:52.320 It's saying that

01:11:53.420 a Christian king is a contradiction

01:11:55.440 in terms why do you think people are saying that like what's the motive man it's so there's so many

01:12:01.840 motives that are that come to mind i think tribalism is one of them where um you have like

01:12:07.220 consolidation of one of the things that needs to happen if you're going to um have any kind of

01:12:14.640 progress made is that we need to build a coalition of people around the adoption of certain aims and

01:12:19.860 political ideas and goals so that we can then gain gain and leverage power to achieve those goals

01:12:27.540 so it takes a lot of people to do that they have to come together across lots of different

01:12:32.180 lines within protestantism and christianity in in america today and there is definitely

01:12:37.580 momentum behind some of this but because that momentum is building around political aims that

01:12:42.960 fundamentally challenges the presuppositions of the majority position in the west today

01:12:47.280 you're going to have a fear reaction to that by people who have assumed that the status quo is

01:12:52.800 moral and good and normative instead of radical and novel and insane which it is people that

01:12:59.340 assume that the post-world war ii consensus and the moral presuppositions about things like

01:13:03.680 race and immigration all these things are just obviously this is what everybody's always believed

01:13:08.500 who's been a christian and and then people like steven wolf or zachary garris in our book or you

01:13:13.020 know, we go back and we start to say, no, no, no, Christians didn't always believe these things.

01:13:17.380 These were mainly foisted on us by radical cultural shifts brought on by liberalism,

01:13:22.880 communism, Marxism, and other isms that are really would like to kill you. And so you should

01:13:27.860 shed those false ideas and embrace more sound, historically robust Christian positions on things

01:13:34.660 like national self-interest. And, and that's really scary. It's much more comfortable to

01:13:40.580 operate within the rules that the elites in the system have established as

01:13:44.900 the rules that everybody must play by.

01:13:46.820 Because if you start throwing those rules out,

01:13:49.020 all of a sudden you are an enemy.

01:13:51.020 Number one,

01:13:51.860 you're like,

01:13:52.480 you're the one that particularly they must destroy.

01:13:56.300 Cause you're not just questioning how we live within their matrix.

01:14:01.700 You're saying unplug yourself from the matrix.

01:14:04.980 Yeah.

01:14:05.300 Right.

01:14:05.540 It's a different thing.

01:14:06.780 Well,

01:14:07.160 and the kind of tied to this,

01:14:08.200 It's one of the questions I want to ask, and Dan, maybe you can float this since you're such a big brain, but you can you can handle me floating this question.

01:14:16.840 We have a lot of people in Christian reform camps saying things like, if you believe that the Constitution is dead, this is contra biblical teaching.

01:14:26.300 You know, and it's interesting because guys like Christopher Caldwell wrote a New York Times bestseller talking about how civil rights killed the constitutional era.

01:14:38.200 It was probably dead before that, granted, but whatever was left of it was killed.

01:14:43.140 I mean, civil rights has destroyed the original Constitution.

01:14:46.580 Not a Christian nationalist, not any of those things.

01:14:49.980 But yet you have people today saying, well, let me give you the biblical nuance position.

01:14:53.900 This is wicked and evil to say the Constitution is dead.

01:14:56.300 Yeah. The biblical position on the constitution, which is like the biblical position on dark

01:15:01.540 chocolate or zebra cakes, the biblical position on, I don't know, like what the state flag of

01:15:08.000 New Hampshire should be. It's like the, I'm sorry, my friend, the Bible doesn't, it's nonsensical.

01:15:12.880 It's not, it's not in there. The Bible was finished before 70 AD. So yes. So my question

01:15:18.480 is, do you think this is just part of the demoralization strategy? Do you think it's

01:15:23.740 genuine ignorance combinations of things it seems like part of the problem could be that christians

01:15:30.780 haven't had a well thought out political theology for a very long time ignorance is part of the

01:15:35.880 strategy because you have to recognize that the law of averages means that there are just as many

01:15:42.100 people below 100 iq as there are above right so you have to recognize that a huge percentage of

01:15:49.740 america or of any population up to and including the population of the entire world is there's a

01:15:55.760 huge percentage of people that just aren't that smart they're not going to be capable of deep

01:16:01.360 political thinking they're not going to be capable of you know nuance they're not going to be capable

01:16:06.180 of conditional you know understanding of conditional propositions and right so when you start saying

01:16:12.140 let's talk about classical political theory and you you know taking him back through the reformation

01:16:16.120 and the medieval time and Greek Roman and Greek thought you've completely you're just not making

01:16:21.160 an impact. You might as well be speaking Mandarin Chinese to a lot of people. So if you can make

01:16:26.620 really easily packaged pithy kind of false ideas that are convenient to your movement that are

01:16:33.720 easily absorbed and what's the word harmonious with the current thinking that is has no cost

01:16:41.220 to adopt, then that is that you can use that to sway a huge percentage of the population.

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01:19:43.120 Well, it's probably why you have a lot of people who are, you know,

01:19:47.160 kind of using that whole language of gospel-centeredness and gospel centrality

01:19:51.420 and like somehow tying that to the Constitution.

01:19:54.840 You're like, oh, those are different categories.

01:19:57.720 I'm failing to get it.

01:19:59.040 It's actually really interesting because what you're talking about with this messaging about the Constitution and about a Christian king or emperor Caesar, whatever, is the whole crowd is anti political power.

01:20:13.680 Like Christians shouldn't use political power.

01:20:15.720 And they're using the tactics of politicians in order to gain political power.

01:20:20.420 That's what they're doing is by making these sorts of statements.

01:20:23.980 These politicians do the political left.

01:20:27.480 Yeah.

01:20:27.560 Yeah, you have a permissible narrative that like the simple majority is going to understand and be riled up by so that they can gain political power.

01:20:38.480 It's like when you stand up and you say things like, I do not agree with all of these Christian and Reformed men who are teaching husbands that they should violently dominate their wives and children.

01:20:51.860 I stand against that.

01:20:53.720 and what you're doing is you're implying that there is a huge percentage of christians out there

01:21:00.560 who are successfully promoting the idea of violently dominating your family and things

01:21:05.640 like that and you're like well it's just a smear it's it's it's the poisoning the well is the name

01:21:11.060 of the strategy you just poison the well by ascribing even subtly and by implication

01:21:15.200 deniable deniably because you could always find some crazy random anonymous twitter account that's

01:21:22.060 like no i totally believe in violently dominating your wife and and then just see it's out there

01:21:26.940 it's everywhere people people everywhere are saying this i actually saw this you never named

01:21:31.980 the people that you're actually hoping people will conclude you're talking about yeah so that

01:21:36.020 they could defend themselves and be like hey by the way here's 18 contradictions of that and some

01:21:40.580 nuance and you know that's not what i'm saying yeah even in criticism of us somebody was saying

01:21:45.880 on twitter that um i bet if you counted up the instances where you know eric or brian has

01:21:51.120 mentioned the gospel or repentance and it was funny because somebody else was like actually

01:21:55.500 twitter has this function they're like eric i just searched his profile he talks about repentance

01:21:59.680 nine times in the last like 30 days or something like that yeah it was like actually quite often

01:22:03.940 yeah but it is interesting because um also on the positive end what worked in 2016 was a simple

01:22:12.120 phrase like make america great again yeah i think that a lot of normie grill americans could actually

01:22:18.620 resonate with that without having to have a really full or robust theory of a nation even.

01:22:25.800 But they were saying, yeah, we're tired of being treated like we suck and we're tired

01:22:29.960 of the war against middle America.

01:22:31.320 So maybe some recipes for success as well there.

01:22:35.280 Do you gentlemen, as you look at particularly church leadership, do you see stuff panning

01:22:40.700 out for the better in that regard?

01:22:43.000 Or do you kind of see it maybe a Scanderbag situation where it's like, we're going to

01:22:46.660 have to fight.

01:22:47.180 we have to realize we're probably going to be betrayed by our own and there's probably more

01:22:52.460 betrayals coming well we just saw a situation i don't know if you guys saw this yet but

01:22:56.460 trump was convicted on all 34 counts i didn't see that i think it came out while we while we

01:23:02.040 were recording so um since we started recording we live in a nation where that's the polit that

01:23:10.140 is the increasing direction of the political climate and you can i think you can apply that

01:23:14.840 kind of, um, background world to the evangelical world, to almost any sort of political arena or

01:23:22.460 arena of ideas and, you know, that, that cultures and things like that. So we just have to understand

01:23:29.700 that, um, we live in a world that's fundamentally hostile to Christianity and it's bent on the

01:23:38.040 wholesale destruction of Christianity. It's not aiming to coexist peacefully with Christians

01:23:44.200 and basically say like, yeah, we're totally glad that there are these conservative Christians

01:23:48.160 out there. They bring a lot to the nation. It's a melting pot. Of course, we want them around.

01:23:53.320 They do their thing. We just want to have the freedom to do our thing over here in our corner.

01:23:57.480 That's not even what they're saying. It's a totalizing campaign for complete victory,

01:24:03.940 domination, and conquering, which is why Dan's point about TGC not dying, but actually being

01:24:08.660 conquered is important because they're not just aiming to marginalize they're aiming to conquer

01:24:15.280 take over and then use the pulpit and use these things to promote their agenda really the strategy

01:24:21.580 is used in every sector of the world you so trump is uh found guilty on all of these charges whether

01:24:29.380 they're true or not probably not it's all made up whatever but they're using bureaucracy and

01:24:34.980 the legal system in order to stop a political opponent. You see this actually in corporate

01:24:40.960 America to where you will have corporations that lobby Congress to pass legislation for

01:24:49.140 restrictions, government regulation on their competition to give themselves an advantage.

01:24:55.080 They're using bureaucracy and the legal system to do that. And I think what's going to happen,

01:25:00.620 Eric, to answer your question, is that things are going to get really ugly in Christianity.

01:25:06.180 Things are going to get really ugly because you can already see these lines being drawn right now

01:25:11.480 as the, you know, Big Eva of the 70s through early 00s has pretty much fallen at this point.

01:25:21.900 John MacArthur is one of the last, you know, bulwarks of Big Eva kind of world. A lot of

01:25:29.180 them have gone left at this point are completely irrelevant but as they're the these different

01:25:36.340 groups and tribes try to vie for power you'll see if you're already willing to lie about your

01:25:44.780 opponent publicly as a christian pastor you're already willing to straw man them and to drag

01:25:51.600 their name through the mud and to make things up about them to lie what will you not be willing

01:25:57.480 to do uh that's why i think it's going to get really ugly in the future uh for christians in

01:26:03.200 this christian world because there is people power and money to be had influence and i think that

01:26:10.480 there are some bad actors that are fighting for it right now and so i don't know what's going to

01:26:16.380 happen but i think it's going to be ugly in the short term and so i think that a fight is probably

01:26:21.340 necessary and i don't know how it looks right now what we're doing is is part of that i'll see you

01:26:26.800 in the parking lot well i'll see you in the parking lot but it is interesting uh going back

01:26:32.220 to the trump thing for just a minute because i think it is a in a way like an emblematic snapshot

01:26:38.840 of where we are as a nation so this is trump's response he said the real verdict will be november

01:26:43.940 5th by the people but this statement right here from trump the whole country is being rigged right

01:26:49.160 now this is being done by the biden administration in order to hurt or wound a political opponent

01:26:55.280 I think there are so many Americans, including Christian Americans, who find themselves in this position where they feel like this whole system is rigged against us.

01:27:04.700 And so I think the reality is for Christians is if I could give like one white pill moment, you have to wake up.

01:27:12.360 You have to wake up to the reality of what's going on in Skanderbeg's world.

01:27:15.900 This is not. And this is the encouragement.

01:27:17.740 This is not new. Right.

01:27:19.840 That your nobles will betray you, that your friends will betray you.

01:27:23.400 And you sort of have to have this Trump like attitude where you're like, I'll see you at

01:27:27.660 the polls and we'll see.

01:27:29.780 And the guy hasn't given up.

01:27:31.440 He keeps fighting.

01:27:32.700 And I think for Christians, you know, not I'm, you know, not to conflate that with, you

01:27:37.320 know, supporting Trump or anything like that.

01:27:39.060 But I'm just saying as Christians, like the people who are going to win in this moment,

01:27:42.780 you cannot flinch when the left aims all its guns at you.

01:27:47.000 You just can't do it.

01:27:48.060 no and we have to recognize that like we have this fallacious way of thinking where we kind

01:27:52.460 of assume that the current state of affairs is normal and will continue forever it doesn't it's

01:27:57.120 just not like we're in the pax americana but all of the time like history is full of of rapid

01:28:03.080 complete changes where all of a sudden the britons are conquered by the saxons or all of a sudden

01:28:09.680 we've got a danish you know invasion or all of a sudden we've got you give roman examples

01:28:15.060 the visigoths i mean you could give example after example in american history the paradigm for what

01:28:21.300 it means to be an american and what our nation is like has changed five to ten times in the few

01:28:27.060 short years that we've existed as a nation so that that means that things can get much much worse

01:28:33.180 really quick much much better really quick or just very different like it we can't operate as

01:28:39.420 if the paradigm you can just project the trend into the future indefinitely and that that's kind

01:28:45.240 of what i see right now a lot of the people like you're saying people need to wake up to is

01:28:48.880 no we're really at turning some turning points in terms of our national life and within christianity

01:28:56.220 that we need to shed some of the some of the slave mentality that has been hoisted on us or

01:29:03.620 foisted on us by evil political masters and reassert our own will.

01:29:11.840 Yeah, I think that's a great point.

01:29:14.040 Gentlemen, I want to conclude with sort of hopefully what I think will be a white pill.

01:29:18.660 Because in the midst of this whole story, the Janissaries, stealing children, pedophilia,

01:29:23.740 all the horrible stuff.

01:29:25.220 If you read the whole story of Skanderbeg, it's really interesting that in his mercy

01:29:30.420 and his wisdom and his kind providence the lord raised up a man who was stolen by the muslims

01:29:36.840 and he turns on them and he becomes the most lethal weapon against them in that day along

01:29:44.540 with john hunyadi they call him scanner bag which means lord alexander lord alexander the great i

01:29:51.420 mean he was so feared he's also referred to as the albanian braveheart uh we watch a film like

01:29:57.580 Braveheart today, William Wallace. It stirs men with courage. So for me, it gives sort of a hope

01:30:05.860 that, you know, God will do amazing things that we least expect in even terrible moments. And

01:30:12.220 really, when you put it in historical perspective, we're like, yeah, things are bad, but they're not

01:30:18.260 like Muslims raping my kids bad. So some perspective there is helpful. But Dan, why do you

01:30:25.020 think it's so important to take into account God's providence and how he uses figures like

01:30:30.000 Skanderbeg to defeat the enemy? Well, I mean, it kindles the fires of courage within you

01:30:35.440 to look back at our Christian fathers and to see when dark times come that the Lord is faithful

01:30:40.380 to provide. Even though the thing is, even in a winning battle, men still die. But what glory

01:30:47.100 is there to be had? What glory is there to be won in times that are dark? And so praise God for

01:30:53.760 all of these stories that he's written for us throughout history of our Christian forefathers

01:30:58.480 when these dark times come that there are men of courage who will stand who will not break

01:31:02.940 who will be principled who won't give way to the enemies of the Lord and he will provide and he

01:31:08.460 will he will provide a way for them to victory and he will provide a way for us to victory

01:31:14.020 so there is hope that's what I think is best about these stories there's hope yeah I think

01:31:20.240 that's great brian uh just your thoughts uh the raising up of skanderbag god's providence how he

01:31:25.820 loves to thwart evil by i mean this sort of this like turning it against itself and raising up

01:31:32.280 somebody from within the system it's like somebody going to university getting trained in all the

01:31:36.760 worst institutions in america and then coming back to our side and being like i know how to defeat

01:31:41.020 them why does god love to do that god loves to use the tools of the enemy like their schemes and

01:31:48.640 turn them back on his own head and end up having hayman you know hanging on his own gallows gallows

01:31:57.980 or um it was actually probably an impaling pole i guess historically to your favorite person vlad

01:32:03.800 i knew it god loves to do that so i i think it's important that we pray that we uh trust the lord

01:32:12.500 in that we really each seek to be the kind of men

01:32:17.420 that would be willing to embrace the spirit of a skanderbag

01:32:22.180 and say, look, not all of us are going to have the hubris

01:32:25.860 to think like, I am a skanderbag.

01:32:28.160 Well, probably not.

01:32:29.240 But can you live that arc out in your own life

01:32:33.360 in some small way?

01:32:35.060 Can you be the kid that was raised in public school

01:32:37.100 and turn around and be like, not my kids?

01:32:40.380 You know, can you be the husband that grew up in a passive home with a dad that didn't

01:32:44.940 do family worship and didn't, you know, and say, not, no, my kids are going to be different.

01:32:49.340 Can you be the one who grew up in the really evangelical fish mega church and say, no,

01:32:53.860 no, our family, we're going to worship the Lord in sobriety and holiness and fruitfulness.

01:32:58.580 And we're, I'm going to leave my family to a different kind of church.

01:33:01.740 We're going to start a different sort of thing and raise our children, not to fear all the

01:33:06.220 danger of the world, but to look at it as an opportunity and a battleground on which to glorify

01:33:10.960 God. It's important not that we all just sit there and wait for a skander bag, but for all of us to

01:33:16.480 say, God loves to play this story out on the level of a single human life and on the level of nations

01:33:23.640 and empires. And he'll do it in your life if you look to him in faith and embrace the hardship that

01:33:31.100 he's put in front of you, uh, in faithfulness, whether it's your welding job or leading a nation

01:33:36.360 that he'll be faithful. So, I mean, that, that's the charge that I would want to give to men is

01:33:41.280 you don't, you, we underestimate the power of a single devoted Christian life lived in faithful

01:33:48.660 sobriety and lived in with a righteous zeal for God's glory and for their people. Um, you don't,

01:33:55.740 you have no idea what God could do with just one life lived faithfully like

01:34:00.540 that.

01:34:01.020 Yeah.

01:34:01.460 So be that one,

01:34:02.360 like be that one man,

01:34:04.300 be that woman,

01:34:05.320 be,

01:34:05.660 you know,

01:34:06.020 embrace that.

01:34:07.240 Yeah.

01:34:07.520 I love to,

01:34:08.140 uh,

01:34:08.460 as Scander bag is dying.

01:34:09.660 I think that's great.

01:34:10.760 Uh,

01:34:11.160 but he says,

01:34:11.580 but now my dear friends in the ordinary course of human events,

01:34:14.140 when I have reached three score and three years of my age,

01:34:16.660 seized by a grievous sickness and shorn of my accustomed strength,

01:34:19.880 I began to wax feeble and little by little,

01:34:22.060 I go the way of all flesh.

01:34:23.900 the time has come for me to lay aside this mortal and frail burden of my body

01:34:27.860 even so I have run the race which it pleased God to appoint to me

01:34:31.960 and then I love this he says before my soul departs from my body

01:34:36.160 and before I leave you there is one thing of which I find it necessary to

01:34:39.820 admonish you and to plead with you until now during my lifetime you have endured

01:34:43.880 all suffering for the safety and dignity of our Christian religion and our country

01:34:47.980 by these means you have won the favor honor and admiration of the princes

01:34:51.720 of Christendom even hereafter

01:34:53.840 when I'm dead and gone let that be the only

01:34:55.820 and the whole desire of your hearts

01:34:57.780 and I was like man

01:34:59.600 so good that is the kind of charge you want to give on your

01:35:01.860 deathbed yep yep and he pleads with

01:35:03.820 them like don't give in to the devices

01:35:05.720 of the Ottomans we would say the same

01:35:07.860 don't give in to the devices of wicked men

01:35:09.600 everywhere around you they could be in the ranks of Christians

01:35:11.640 but continue fighting and be

01:35:13.620 steadfast and firm in the

01:35:15.880 faith to which you were devoted so

01:35:17.760 I love that

01:35:18.420 amen amen well gentlemen it's been a great episode we do actually i know this was an old

01:35:25.640 it was an old thing where we would give toasts oh yeah uh in the after hours but this was actually

01:35:33.400 a old-fashioned thursday we are celebrating the arrival of zachary garris's book the big boxes of

01:35:40.240 hardcovers like we said at the beginning and so he said let's have an old-fashioned thank the lord

01:35:44.460 and so we should end with a toast yeah let's end with a toast dan i charge you man i was hoping

01:35:49.880 you'd pick somebody else because i'm so i've already drank all mine me too it's all gone

01:35:55.840 dang i'm good you haven't drank yours yet i'm ready for the final draft all right this this

01:36:01.220 to the men take heart because the the future looks dark but you have a lord that will not

01:36:09.000 forsake you be faithful to him and he will provide he will overcome all the obstacles that face you

01:36:14.940 all of the enemies that come against you and he will cause all of his enemies to be under his feet

01:36:20.980 whether they repent or he crushes them so take take heart and continue to fight the good fight

01:36:39.000 We'll be right back.

01:37:09.000 slash TheKingsHall if you'd like to support the show and get some extra content.

The King's Hall - May 31, 2024

The Albanian Braveheart： Skanderbeg, Ottomon Slave Trade, & Janissaries

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