The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 240 - The Case Against Ugly Churches

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, it is a great tragedy that the Notre Dame Cathedral burned

00:00:04.140 yesterday, but what is it about the church, about that church, and those churches that are like it

00:00:10.580 that we find so awe-inspiring? You know, why do we get so attached to those kinds of churches?

00:00:15.320 And why don't we build churches like that anymore? Today I want to talk about the need for beauty in

00:00:21.200 the church and why we should start building beautiful churches again. Also, today I'm going

00:00:26.720 to defend someone I don't usually defend, and I'll answer your emails, including an email about

00:00:32.820 the rapture. Is it upon us? Is it even actually a thing? We'll talk about that today on the Matt

00:00:38.080 Walsh Show. All right, broadcasting right now from beautiful Daytona Beach, because I got to tell you,

00:00:49.400 my job is pretty hard. I have to come to places like Daytona Beach and be here. And I was trying

00:00:57.680 to explain this to my wife yesterday. I was telling her that, you know, it's, it's, I said to her, I

00:01:01.460 mean, yeah, I, you have to stay back and watch all three kids by yourself, but I have to go to

00:01:08.520 the beach. I mean, yuck. It's, it's, I, I envy you personally. I, I, I wouldn't want to be doing

00:01:14.880 this, but, uh, but I have to, I mean, I got to make sacrifices for the family, honey. Don't you

00:01:18.800 understand that? Um, but I, I am making this enormous sacrifice because I'm giving a talk at

00:01:25.300 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where I'll be giving a lecture on, um, aerospace engineering.

00:01:32.020 Actually, it won't be on that subject, although it'd be pretty hilarious if I tried to try, if I tried

00:01:36.060 to, if I attempted a lecture on that. Um, it is a free event though. I can tell you that. And, uh,

00:01:40.420 because let's be honest, nobody in their right mind would pay to see me. So it's a free event and

00:01:44.620 it's open to the public. So I hope that, um, that you'll come out if you're in town now a lot to

00:01:49.020 cover today, uh, starting with the, of course, devastating events of yesterday. Uh, but an

00:01:54.660 event that I hope will spur, um, positive change. And I want to talk about what that positive change

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00:04:13.700 slash Walsh. Okay. Starting with, um, unfortunately the bad stuff, Notre Dame cathedral,

00:04:22.200 as you no doubt heard was on fire yesterday in Paris. Um, the first day of Holy week,

00:04:28.440 a day after Palm Sunday. And this happens, it's a building that went under construction,

00:04:33.860 almost 900 years ago, took well over a hundred years to construct, uh, not counting all the

00:04:39.180 renovations throughout the centuries. So this is just, I mean, you look at the man hours that went

00:04:43.320 into this, including the, the renovations that it's just, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's really

00:04:47.500 beyond comprehension. Um, it is, and still is one of the greatest churches ever to be built in the

00:04:54.160 world, anywhere in the world in history. And, uh, the sad fact is that a sizable chunk of it is gone

00:05:00.800 forever now because of what appears to be an accidental fire, probably related to some of

00:05:05.160 the construction that was being done to fix, uh, to renovate, uh, you know, some of the things with

00:05:10.120 the church. Um, a sizable chunk of it is gone, but not all. And miraculously, and I do mean that

00:05:16.260 literally the bones are still standing. Many of the magnificent stained glass windows are, are,

00:05:20.700 are still intact. Um, the two main towers of the church are still there. So it's going to be

00:05:27.380 hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars to repair slash rebuild, but, um, it hasn't been

00:05:32.740 reduced to ash. It's, it's still there, which is a testament to many things, including the

00:05:37.580 architectural prowess of the middle ages. Uh, what building today could withstand, could survive

00:05:44.200 an inferno like that? Um, not many of them, I'll tell you that, but ultimately it's a, it's a

00:05:49.980 testament to, um, to God, of course, but here's what I want to dwell on for a moment. Um,

00:05:55.740 people were, if you watch yesterday and I was watching the, I don't watch cable news a lot

00:06:03.280 these days, but, uh, for something like this, I turned it on. I was watching the coverage

00:06:06.940 and, and, and by the way, I'll give credit where it's due. Uh, I thought CNN did a great

00:06:12.560 job of covering the, the, um, the fire, uh, Cuomo, whatever he, whatever time he's on,

00:06:18.460 I turned on CNN at whatever time, I think it was seven o'clock, eight o'clock. And, uh, he did

00:06:22.540 his whole show on, on the cathedral burning and I actually watched the entire thing. I thought he

00:06:28.740 did a, he just did a really wonderful job. So, um, you know, I don't, don't usually give credit

00:06:33.580 to CNN. I'll give him credit there. Um, but if you're watching the, the footage, you see people

00:06:38.860 crying in the streets, they're distraught over it. Well, why is that? You know? Well, I would say

00:06:45.900 because the cathedral is beautiful, right? And when something beautiful is made and then destroyed,

00:06:54.820 we recognize it as a real loss. Uh, nobody would cry if they demolished the parking garage down the

00:07:03.040 street. Right. Uh, but they, they do cry over this because one is beautiful and one is not. 0.86

00:07:09.640 And beauty is important. It's not a small thing. You need beauty in faith and you need it in life

00:07:16.760 because beauty speaks to the fundamental longing of the human soul and churches should strive always

00:07:23.760 to satisfy that longing. Not, not just with the building, obviously it's, it's more than the

00:07:29.560 building, but the building is part of it. The building should be part of it. Every aspect of the

00:07:35.080 church experience, including the building itself should be a part of this effort to point people

00:07:41.760 towards God, to speak to that, um, to that longing that we have for beauty. You know, I I've, I've told

00:07:52.220 the story before, um, about when my wife and I once walked into a mall in Kentucky only to realize that

00:08:00.520 it was not a mall because it was actually a mega church. I think I told the, I think I told the story

00:08:04.340 on Ben's on the, on the Sunday special, uh, the building looked in every way, like a mall.

00:08:09.880 And when I wrote this today, there are people saying, well, how could you have possibly made

00:08:12.860 that mistake? I'm telling you the building looked exactly like, um, I mean, I would defy you. If

00:08:17.920 you looked at this building, I would define, and you didn't know what it was. I would defy you to

00:08:21.180 think anything other than mall. I mean, it looked a hundred percent like a mall. And, um, there was,

00:08:26.380 from what we could see, there was nothing on the building. There was no religious paraphernalia.

00:08:31.140 We didn't even see anything that said the word church on it. Obviously we saw that,

00:08:34.700 that we would have figured it out. Um, so it looked like a ball, a mall. And we walked in

00:08:40.540 and once inside the structure, we began to realize our mistake. Um, but it only really fully dawned on

00:08:46.980 me when a woman in a, in a neon green t-shirt walked up to, up to us and handed us a program. 1.00

00:08:52.420 Um, and then we realized, Oh, okay. Now I see what's going on here. Um, and then I found out

00:08:59.560 later that this church was built right where a mall once stood. I mean, it used to be a mall

00:09:04.780 actually, literally, which was, I guess is part of the confusion for us because it was obviously

00:09:08.660 in a mall like area with restaurants and stuff all around and a big parking lot and people were

00:09:13.040 walking in and out and just look like a mall. Um, but it wasn't. And I thought about that incident

00:09:22.600 yesterday as I watched the Notre Dame cathedral burn because nobody would ever make that mistake

00:09:29.540 with the Notre Dame cathedral or a building like it. You look at that building and you know why it's

00:09:34.360 there. It is there to, to, it's constructed to worship and glorify God and to help in the

00:09:39.580 facilitation of that worship. To even look at the building is to even now after the fire to look

00:09:47.780 at it is to have a religious experience because it's beauty brings your mind unwittingly to higher

00:09:54.120 things. You can't help, but think of God. When you look at that building, um, it focuses your sights

00:09:59.040 upward, both physically and spiritually because it is beautiful. And that's what beautiful things do.

00:10:05.820 Now, not every church can look like that. I know that. And maybe no church ever again will.

00:10:12.100 Even Notre Dame may never again look exactly like that. And that's just terrible to think about.

00:10:16.220 But churches are still being built in this country. Um, and lots of money is being spent

00:10:22.400 on building them. So this excuse that I hear from people that, well, we want to spend the money on

00:10:26.900 helping the poor instead. Oh, please stop it. You know, just, just stop it. That mega church that I

00:10:32.720 walked into, I guarantee that thing costs millions of dollars to build millions. Any church costs money

00:10:40.260 to build. And a lot of modern churches are very, very, very expensive. Mega churches are very expensive.

00:10:46.840 Okay. So it's not like this. Oh, you know, we're going to tamp down the beauty so we can spend the

00:10:50.380 rest on the poor. No, that's not what they're doing. Okay. They're tamping down the beauty because

00:10:55.640 they don't want it. And they also want to spend more on fancy light displays and audio visual stuff and

00:11:00.360 all that kind of stuff. Um, so it's not like we stopped making beautiful churches to cut costs and give

00:11:05.520 it to the poor. And even if that, even if that was the excuse, even if that was true, I would still

00:11:10.400 disagree with it. And Jesus disagreed with it too. He rebuked that attitude. Remember when the woman was

00:11:16.200 anointing Jesus with the expensive oils and perfumes and Judas is the one who said, uh, well, we could sell

00:11:24.580 that stuff and give it to the poor. We should be doing that instead. And, and Jesus rebuked Judas

00:11:29.300 and said, you're always going to have the poor with you. The point there is to, to take something

00:11:37.580 to spend money. Yes. And energy and time on glorifying God is a, is a good thing.

00:11:46.200 And it's a false choice. Anyway, you don't have to choose between glorifying God and beauty and art

00:11:51.960 and all of that and helping the poor. You can do both. And in fact, you do help the poor with beauty.

00:11:58.160 The poor are people too. And I'm talking about this is a beauty is a fundamental human need that

00:12:03.780 everyone, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, shares that need. But we don't even have that

00:12:10.060 excuse because we are investing money in our churches, into the buildings, and they could be

00:12:16.020 made beautiful, not Notre Dame cathedral level. Beautiful. Yes, but beautiful yet they are not.

00:12:21.840 And it's not that we're nowadays, uh, you know, trying to make a beautiful churches and failing.

00:12:27.020 Okay. That would be, that would be maybe one thing because it's the thought that counts, I guess.

00:12:32.020 But what makes it so insidious is that we're trying really hard to make unbeautiful, bland,

00:12:39.720 ugly, profane churches, and we're succeeding. Our houses of worship look like shopping malls and

00:12:45.960 prisons and basketball stadiums on purpose. That's an aesthetic choice that's being made.

00:12:53.100 So whereas Notre Dame stands out gloriously, um, amid the skyline, modern churches are meant to sort of

00:13:01.560 blend in like chameleons or like the, uh, you know, the shy kid at the homecoming dance, who's kind of

00:13:06.760 trying to blend into the surroundings. So no one looks at them. And that, and that's what churches

00:13:10.160 do. When you look at modern churches, it's like, they're embarrassed to be a church. They don't

00:13:14.140 want anyone to know even the names of the churches, you know, cross point or new horizons or something.

00:13:21.080 Do you, you know why they choose names like that? Because they don't want you to know at first glance

00:13:25.400 that it's a church. They're ashamed of it. And so you hear, you see, you see, you see a church these

00:13:30.740 days, you see what it looks like. It has a name like new horizons. And you think, well, what is that?

00:13:34.100 Is that like a, is that a, uh, a rehab center for wealthy drug offenders? Was it, what is it?

00:13:39.160 And even if you went inside and listened to the sermon that's being delivered,

00:13:42.620 you still probably wouldn't know. You still wouldn't be exactly sure. Maybe this is the

00:13:47.000 motivational speech that I give, uh, during a rec time or something. Um, and that's the way the

00:13:54.420 modern church experience is designed. You know, the church that I attended as a child

00:13:59.200 was, uh, was new at the time was newly built. And it was really fascinating to look at this church,

00:14:07.060 which you can still go and look at it still stands because it's, it seemed like it was made

00:14:12.400 in order to maximize ugliness to the greatest possible degree. Now, old Catholic churches, 1.00

00:14:18.800 the way they were built was, uh, if you go into a really old church, you'll notice this old Catholic 0.58

00:14:24.180 church is that they were all built so that everybody in the church, including the priest

00:14:29.160 is faced to the tabernacle and the cross. Everybody is faced that direction. Like we're all looking to

00:14:35.740 Jesus. We're not looking at each other. We're not looking at the guy up on up there. Cause it's not

00:14:39.320 about him. We're all looking up, you know, beyond really. And that's how churches were designed back

00:14:46.120 in the, back in the old days. Uh, but a change was made in the design of churches and Catholic 0.79

00:14:51.940 churches, all churches where now it's all about the guy on stage. It's all about him.

00:14:55.960 And we're all, everything is about glorifying him and the band. And it's all about that.

00:15:01.320 So this church, you know, back in, uh, when I was a kid,

00:15:04.480 the, uh, the way it was designed was they'd put the tabernacle off to the side. Uh, there was very

00:15:11.980 little artwork, no stained glass or anything. And it was centered so that everything was, was,

00:15:17.500 was directed right at the priest. And then behind him was this absolutely hideous decorative

00:15:24.180 organ structure. Like for it's, you know, like a, like a church organ, the, the, the pipes of the

00:15:30.820 organ, but they weren't even functional. They're just decorative. And that's what was the, the focal

00:15:36.280 point of the, um, of the experience. It's like, if you, if you turn on Joel Osteen sometime, which I

00:15:42.020 don't recommend, and what does he have up there on stage with him? It's like a tree or something

00:15:45.520 like that, or a globe, right? Just like some mundane, secular kind of vague, ambiguous thing.

00:15:52.600 That's what, that's the focus. That's what we're all looking at. God forbid you have a,

00:15:56.600 God forbid you have a, a, a, a cross up up there, right? We wouldn't want that. 1.00

00:16:01.980 Now I have no problem with simple churches. I'm not saying that all churches should be extravagant.

00:16:08.340 Far from it. Uh, I really like the unassuming little old church houses that you find when you travel.

00:16:14.520 I do a lot of driving across Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Hampshire. And, uh, if you go

00:16:19.540 around there up and down the Eastern, you know, East coast, um, you're going to find a lot of these

00:16:26.380 little old church houses that were built probably a hundred, 200 years ago. Very simple. Um, very

00:16:32.780 unassuming, but beautiful. And they're the kind where you walk in, there's no air conditioning. The

00:16:36.980 pews are super uncomfortable. There's no cry room for the fussy child. Uh, there's no bells and

00:16:42.860 whistles at all. Sometimes you'd be lucky if you even get a, uh, usually you'll get a sound system,

00:16:47.320 but, um, that's pretty much it as far as modern, uh, additions go. And I like those churches because

00:16:55.500 there's a real unmistakable charm there and a feeling of connection to the past and to your

00:17:01.360 own Christian history that you feel and you experience that you'll never experience in the

00:17:06.200 comfortable temperature controlled confines of elevation church or a Lakewood or, or one of

00:17:12.080 their cousins. So what I'm saying is simple does not equate to ugly. Mountains are simple. Oak trees

00:17:21.040 are simple. Infants are simple. Tiny colonial era churches are simple. They're all simple in

00:17:27.480 different ways and they're beautiful in different ways. Modern churches are not simple and they're not

00:17:32.460 cheap, but all the money and care and complexity is devoted to keeping the hearts and minds of the

00:17:37.280 congregation pointed towards earthly things. And especially, as I said, towards the guy up on the 0.96

00:17:42.140 pulpit or the stage, I guess, um, delivering his vaguely theological opinions. And that's what it's

00:17:48.200 really, that's why everyone is there to listen to the guy's opinions and the band also because,

00:17:53.980 well, he wouldn't want any of the pesky artwork or beauty distracting from the solemn business of

00:17:59.860 listening to him ramble on. And that's the worst part about the modern trend of intentionally making

00:18:05.760 our churches ugly is that it cloaks itself in this guise of self-abdicating humility when really it's

00:18:13.560 exactly the opposite. Michelangelo showed humility when he spent four years on his back painting the

00:18:20.400 story of the Bible on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Now that's humility. Modern churches show

00:18:25.320 extraordinary self-conceit and arrogance, um, when they expend their energy building elaborate but

00:18:32.200 hideous sets for their band and their pastor to occupy. That's not humility. Why is it, you know,

00:18:41.320 if, um, if one of these modernist behemoth churches were to burn to the ground, as long as nobody was

00:18:48.340 inside the building, there aren't going to be any weeping throngs out in the street mourning it. No one's

00:18:53.880 really going to care. The insurance, the insurance companies will handle it. And a few days later,

00:18:58.060 no one's going to even remember what that big, dumb, ugly thing even looked like. People wept over 0.99

00:19:02.900 Notre Dame because of the beauty they wept up. They wept over it for the same reason that a patriotic

00:19:09.220 American would weep. If, um, you know, I say as a Baltimore native, uh, Fort McHenry, the fortress where

00:19:15.520 the, you know, the star spangled banners were waving, um, that inspired the national anthem that Francis

00:19:21.320 Scott Key wrote during the, the war of 1812, as he looked at Fort McHenry and the flags waving

00:19:25.920 there. Now, if Fort McHenry, which still stands on the harbor in Baltimore, if that burned to the

00:19:32.200 ground, uh, you know, as a, as a patriot and a Baltimore native native, I would probably cry over

00:19:37.540 that. I would be really upset. Um, why is it not because I idolize the structure, but because I

00:19:43.460 revere what it represents and what its presence and its history brings to mind. And that's why

00:19:51.960 the beauty of a church is so important. And that's why the, the ugliness of modern churches is such a

00:19:56.980 tragedy. And it's why I really hope that the events of the, of this week and what happened

00:20:01.760 in Notre Dame might inspire us to once again, reach for the artistic heights that our ancestors

00:20:07.460 sought and attained. Now I want to head a few things off at the pass here because I wrote, um,

00:20:14.880 I wrote a piece on this subject. And so for the last few hours, especially while I was on the plane,

00:20:19.600 cause I didn't have anything better to do. Honestly, I've been fielding responses from

00:20:23.680 Christians who really appear to be arguing for ugliness. Like they're arguing in principle for 1.00

00:20:29.660 ugliness. So my, my radical suggestion, um, that we should make beautiful churches. There are a lot of

00:20:36.960 Christians who are, they're against it. They say, no, I don't want beautiful churches. That's the 1.00

00:20:39.940 terrible thing. I don't, I have no interest in that. It's such a perverse mindset. I mean, I can't,

00:20:45.500 I, I just, I, I cannot comprehend it. Um, it's really amazing. And there are objections that I've

00:20:54.780 seen are, and there are a few objections. First of all, a few that I've already covered, they say,

00:21:01.640 well, we don't want beautiful churches because we're spending the money elsewhere. That's just,

00:21:05.540 that's, that's bogus. I'm sorry. That's not true. Um, it's not a valid objection because the ugly

00:21:10.700 churches I'm targeting costs money. All churches cost money. If you're going to have a place to

00:21:15.780 congregate, it's going to cost you money to build. And a lot of these modern ones cost a lot of money,

00:21:19.620 tens and tens of millions of dollars. Uh, we could spend a lot less than that and still make

00:21:25.600 beautiful churches. It in principle, it doesn't cost anything. Beauty in principle does not have any

00:21:31.240 object or any, uh, inherent cost. Now you do have to pay someone to an artist or something. So it

00:21:37.840 will cost you something, but there's no reason why it needs to cost a certain amount. Um,

00:21:44.420 so, and then they'll say, well, it's better to have simple churches again, simplicity and beauty

00:21:52.260 can go hand in hand. So that's not a response to my point at all. And then they say, and I saw a lot

00:21:56.480 of this, um, that, well, the, the buildings mean nothing. They have no value. Uh, physical beauty

00:22:02.020 has no value. It doesn't matter at all. In fact, I saw someone say exactly those words that the

00:22:07.280 buildings mean nothing. They have no meaning. Now this attitude is called Gnosticism. This is not

00:22:15.160 really a Christian attitude. Uh, this is Gnostic. The Gnostics believed that all physical beauty and all 0.88

00:22:21.780 material existence in general is entirely vain and worthless and even evil. Um, that's what

00:22:28.760 Gnostics believe, but Gnostics, Gnosticism is a heresy and it's been long repudiated by Orthodox

00:22:33.640 Christianity. The true Christian understanding and the more thoughtful sort of philosophically

00:22:38.640 grounded understanding is that beauty is meaningful. Okay. So to say that it means nothing. Now I'm not

00:22:44.840 saying it's the most important thing, but to look at a building like the Notre Dame say, well, that means

00:22:49.120 nothing. Not only is that a Gnostic point of view, but it's just, it's an, it's unhuman. You can't 0.98

00:22:55.040 actually feel it. It means nothing really has no value. Um, there, uh, imagine living a life

00:23:06.480 with no beauty at all. If you really think that physical beauty means nothing has no value means

00:23:11.060 nothing at all. Okay. Well, imagine living with no beauty. Imagine living in just a totally bland

00:23:16.860 room and a bland landscape. And there's no beauty to speak of anywhere. Just dreary, mundane

00:23:24.600 ugliness everywhere. And that's some of us, you know, almost do live in a situation like that.

00:23:31.720 But imagine you had no access to physical beauty whatsoever. You would want to kill yourself after 0.77

00:23:37.260 a while. I mean, you, you literally would not want to continue living because life would be so bleak 0.65

00:23:42.580 and despair inducing. Your existence would just be, would be, would be so, uh, so dreary

00:23:51.260 that you wouldn't even want to live. So beauty is an essential need, an essential human need. It's

00:23:57.860 not nothing. And the other objection I've heard is that, well, beauty is subjective.

00:24:02.860 So who am I to call any church ugly, right? How can I say that? Well, again, here we've got an

00:24:08.020 attitude that is incompatible with Orthodox Christianity and one that displays a deep 1.00

00:24:13.040 philosophical ignorance. And, and, and this is, I, you know, what I noticed more and more when,

00:24:17.540 in talking to Christians is that there really is, you know, obviously churches are, are not instilling

00:24:23.720 any kind of philosophical foundation in their congregations whatsoever, because this is just

00:24:28.460 a point of beauty is subject, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is the kind of

00:24:32.620 modernist tripe that Christians have rejected for centuries. And now all of a sudden you have

00:24:38.740 all these Christians saying it, not realizing that they can't say that as a Christian. It's 0.71

00:24:43.880 completely incompatible with your faith. Just think about it for two seconds. Um, and it's not a

00:24:50.660 coincidence that every person on the planet that you meet, barring the insane people will say that a

00:24:56.680 mountain range is more beautiful than a puddle of slush on the side of the road after a snowstorm.

00:25:00.840 And, uh, they'll say the Sistine Chapel is more beautiful than a bag of your dog's fecal matter.

00:25:06.240 Everyone arrives at that conclusion, not by coincidence, but by our, our inherent recognition

00:25:13.180 of something objective in beauty. Now I say that it's incompatible with Christianity because God is 0.95

00:25:19.840 the source of all beauty. That's the Christian understanding. God is the standard of beauty. God,

00:25:24.600 uh, therefore, if you believe in the Christian God, you really can't believe that beauty is subjective.

00:25:29.860 Now there is a subjective element in how we, uh, perceive it and how it speaks to us. So there are

00:25:38.860 certain things that I can recognize as objectively beautiful, yet they just don't do it for me quite

00:25:47.340 as much as something else. Like I can listen to, uh, you know, a, a symphony, uh, and recognize it.

00:25:55.060 This is beautiful music. Uh, however, it's not something that I would sit and listen to for very

00:26:02.680 long, but it is beautiful. I recognize that. Now, if I were to listen to Mozart or something and say,

00:26:08.640 oh, this is disgusting, this is ew, ew, disgusting. If I were to vomit at the, at the sound of Mozart, 0.66

00:26:14.020 well, that, that shows that there's something disordered about me. It does. I don't have to

00:26:18.300 love it. I don't have to, it doesn't have to be my favorite thing, but I should be able to perceive

00:26:24.200 that it is beautiful. And so we all have our own tastes and we all have, you know, some people,

00:26:30.640 uh, you know, love a beach more than a mountain range. You get more of a, of an emotional experience

00:26:38.600 looking at the ocean than you do mountains. And everyone is different in that way. But even if

00:26:42.680 you're that way, you're not going to be grossed out by a mountain range, right? You're going to,

00:26:46.560 you're going to acknowledge and see that it is something beautiful, even if it just doesn't

00:26:51.280 connect with you on the same level. So that's the subjective element in perception, but beauty itself

00:26:57.780 is about the, it's about the, something inherent in, in the thing that we're talking about.

00:27:04.000 Beauty is a, is an objective quality in a thing. Finally, I'm told that, well, it's idol worship to

00:27:10.880 have beautiful churches with, uh, with statues and so on. And this is just silly. Um, do you think that, 0.97

00:27:20.660 I mean, idol worship, you think anyone worshiped the Notre Dame cathedral as a God? Do you think

00:27:26.460 anyone was tempted to literally worship the building as a God? Or when someone looks at the

00:27:31.820 Piedra, uh, or, you know, a, a great sculpture by, by one of the Renaissance artists, you think anyone

00:27:38.100 is tempted to worship it? Like they think that it, that the thing itself is God. Now maybe the pagans

00:27:44.120 were, but that's not a temptation that you and I have. When you look at a, at a beautiful ocean

00:27:49.920 panoramic, are you tempted to start worshiping Poseidon? No, you just, you notice that it's beautiful.

00:27:56.180 You love looking at it. It brings your mind to God, to the God, the real God, the same with beauty

00:28:01.900 in a church and Christian symbolism in a church. Now here's what really gets me. These Christians 1.00

00:28:06.240 who get all weirded out by statues or stained glass or whatever, um, who can't, apparently can't see

00:28:11.860 the symbolic significance of it. These are the same ones who would have a heart attack if they caught

00:28:17.100 you not standing in front of the flag for the, for the pledge of allegiance. If they, you know,

00:28:21.380 you don't have your hand in your heart, you're standing. If you, if you, if you kneel or you sit,

00:28:24.640 these are, these are the same ones that are practically have a, you know, have a seizure

00:28:28.860 from seeing you do that. And God forbid, if you were to burn a flag in front of them,

00:28:33.340 they would call for the death penalty for you. So they see the value in secular symbols in American

00:28:39.960 symbols, and they don't consider that to be idol worship. Oh, a flag touches the ground. It's,

00:28:45.560 you know, it's, it's blasphemy. So that's not idol worship. And I'm not, I'm not saying that it is,

00:28:50.240 but I don't know how you could say that that's not idol worship, but having a beautiful church

00:28:55.980 and a statue is. So secular symbols are okay, but Christian symbols aren't. Symbols that bring 0.98

00:29:02.300 your mind to America are fine, but symbols that bring your mind to God are not fine. I just,

00:29:06.580 I can't understand that mentality makes no sense. It's a irrational mentality. It just is.

00:29:14.100 And if anything is idol worship in those scenarios, it's gotta be the flag thing. And again, I don't

00:29:20.680 think that is, but if one of those is, it's the flag one. Okay. But if you're, if you're able to

00:29:28.000 see that a flag, yes, it is in a, in a utilitarian materialistic sense, it's just a, it's just a

00:29:34.160 cloth, right? It's all it is. But if you're able to see that, yeah, I mean, physically that's what it

00:29:41.580 is, but it stands, it represents, it brings to mind something greater than that. Well, if you can

00:29:46.160 see that with the flag, why can't you see it with art and, and churches and stained glass and statues?

00:29:55.140 Why, why can't you see it there? I just, I don't get it. Um, all right. A couple other things I wanted

00:30:03.740 to mention. One other quick note, uh, related to the Notre Dame, uh, burning. Listen, you know,

00:30:10.420 I'm a, I'm a big critic of Ilhan Omar, the, um, freshman democratic representative. Uh, I'm a

00:30:16.180 critic of hers. I don't, I don't like her. Uh, I, I, and I, I don't agree with pretty much anything

00:30:22.300 she stands for, but she sent out a tweet yesterday about Notre Dame burning. And I'll, I'll read what

00:30:29.660 the tweet said. She said, uh, art and architecture have a unique ability to help us connect across our

00:30:34.560 differences and bring people together in important ways. Thinking of the people of Paris and praying for

00:30:39.560 every first responder trying to save this wonder. Okay. That was her tweet. Ilhan Omar. It's fine.

00:30:45.320 Right. It's fine. And it's the two sentences. It's, it's basically in line with what every other

00:30:49.980 politician said about it on both sides of the spectrum. It's in line with what a lot of people

00:30:54.780 said, uh, with things that I said on Twitter yesterday, it's fine. But of course we live in

00:31:01.860 a culture now where on both sides of the spectrum, we're constantly looking. If there's someone we

00:31:08.680 disagree with and who we think is usually wrong and Omar is usually wrong, well, we're, it's like

00:31:14.980 we're incapable of any kind of, uh, keeping things in perspective. Right? So if we think she's usually

00:31:21.780 wrong, then that means that she has to be wrong about literally everything she says. There has to

00:31:26.200 be something wrong with everything she, every word she speaks, every public statement she makes,

00:31:31.360 there has to be something wrong with all of it. And so we start picking apart every little thing to

00:31:34.700 find things to complain about. And that's what people did with this tweet. They said, well, how

00:31:38.300 art and architecture, it's a church. Why didn't you call it a church? You didn't say anything about

00:31:43.040 Jesus or Christ or God. Come on guys. Come on. If, if Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or whoever Republican

00:31:51.960 had sent that exact same tweet, no conservative would be criticizing it and nobody would. There's

00:31:58.060 nothing where it's fine. We don't need to look for something to complain about with every little

00:32:03.340 thing that a person we disagree with says. Now, the reason why she didn't offer up a prayer to

00:32:10.160 Christ is because she's Muslim. And so that's why she's not talking about Jesus Christ. And yeah, 0.95

00:32:16.460 she didn't call it a church, but we all know that it's a church. So I don't think we need her to tell

00:32:20.220 us that. Maybe she was assuming that we already know it's a church. And so you don't need to be

00:32:24.460 reminded. Do you actually need her to say, uh, PS, by the way, I am referring to the church,

00:32:29.480 Notre Dame cathedral. You know what she means. I just, that's my response to it because I get the

00:32:37.920 same treatment from the other side. A lot of the times, um, or I'll say something and maybe it's

00:32:43.340 clumsily worded. Maybe it isn't, but people are looking for a reason to pounce. And I, my response

00:32:50.300 a lot of the times is, look, you know what I meant? Just back off, calm down. You know what I'm trying

00:32:56.220 to say. So stop pretending that you don't. Uh, all right. Let's see. I had a bunch of emails. Um,

00:33:09.120 well, I mentioned, okay, I guess I'll go to, I'll go to emails now. Um,

00:33:12.400 mattwallshowatgmail.com, mattwallshowatgmail.com. So I talked briefly yesterday about people who

00:33:18.860 worship their dogs. Now that is a form of idol worship that really does happen in the United

00:33:22.940 States. And my whole point that I made yesterday on the show, well, if you didn't see it was, um,

00:33:28.100 I wasn't insulting dogs or anything like that. I just said, dogs, aren't people. Uh, people are

00:33:33.380 more important. You shouldn't love dogs more than people. That was, that was my whole point.

00:33:37.840 And, uh, as you might expect, of course, it's got some response. Let me, let me just,

00:33:41.560 I'll read one response. Um, said, so he's dear Matt. I have always respected you, but there's

00:33:47.680 something wrong with people who don't like dogs. I have no problem admitting. I prefer dogs to people,

00:33:52.440 a dog has never lied to me or cheated me or bullied me. Dogs are the perfect example of

00:33:57.680 unconditional love. I feel sorry for you that you don't understand that or see it.

00:34:01.160 And so I got a lot of stuff like that. Um, first of all, your dog never lied to you because he

00:34:04.660 doesn't have vocal cords. He's incapable of speech. So that's why he's never told you a lie.

00:34:10.280 Uh, but the other reason why he doesn't do those bad things is because he's not capable of making

00:34:15.560 moral choices. Okay. So when you say, well, dogs never hurt my feelings. Yeah, but that's because dogs are

00:34:21.940 not capable of it. They're intrinsically incapable of making moral choices. It's not like every dog

00:34:28.260 in the world can make a moral choice and just always makes the right one. So that dogs are these

00:34:33.260 angelic saintly beings who are perfectly virtuous. No, that's not the case. They don't assess things on

00:34:41.560 a, on a moral landscape. They don't have access to that sort of thought process. So that's why

00:34:48.680 they don't do those things. Why is it now? There are dogs who hurt people out. Dogs maul people to

00:34:54.600 death. Uh, dogs can rip up your furniture. Dogs can poop on your rug, but why is, why don't we hold 0.97

00:35:01.860 dogs legally responsible when they do those things? And, and why is it absurd to get angry at a dog,

00:35:08.440 even if he does chew up your carpet? Uh, why is that? Because he didn't know what he was doing.

00:35:13.720 That's the whole reason. But if you're going to ascribe virtuous motivations to dogs, if you're

00:35:20.660 going to actually claim that dogs are capable of real courage and real self-sacrificing love

00:35:27.380 and, uh, and real virtue, then you, then you would have to say that the dogs who do bad things are

00:35:34.940 actually evil and should be good and should go to prison. They should be, they should face legal

00:35:39.580 penalties. It doesn't make any sense to say, Oh yeah, well they're capable. Yeah. Whenever they

00:35:44.300 do something that appears to be good, well, that's a virtuous choice they made as dogs.

00:35:48.000 But if they do something bad, no, it's not their fault. They're just dogs. You see that it's again,

00:35:51.740 it's irrational. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. You've got to have one view of dogs here.

00:35:56.640 It can't be, it can't be both either. They make moral choices or they don't. And the answer is they

00:36:00.940 don't, uh, which is why you can't really give them credit for not doing mean things that people do.

00:36:06.320 And in fact, yes, there are people who do terrible things. That's true. But every time that a person

00:36:14.640 has, has acted kindly towards you, a person has told you the truth, a person has been loyal to you,

00:36:21.700 a person has comforted you, uh, anytime a person has done something good for you. And I guarantee

00:36:26.540 that many people have done good things for you, whoever you are in your life. Those are, those,

00:36:31.380 those acts of goodness and virtue are far more, infinitely more meaningful than anything that

00:36:37.360 any dog has ever done. Because those people that did those good things, they could, they made a

00:36:44.100 choice. They, they knew they had two options and they knew this, they understood and comprehended the

00:36:50.560 sacrifice they were making in, in, in paying you that kindness. And yet they did it anyway. And so it

00:36:56.960 is so much more meaningful. Yeah. People are more complicated because they make choices and they

00:37:01.560 might hurt you and they might do bad things just like you do bad things. By the way, if you say

00:37:06.700 that you like people more than dogs are better than people, you're saying that dogs are better than you 0.97

00:37:10.060 too, that you are worse than a dog. And maybe that's all you're really saying. I think maybe it's just a

00:37:14.580 reflection of your opinion of yourself. Um, but regardless, that's just, that's so, uh,

00:37:23.280 it's great that dogs don't hurt your feelings, but you know, a doorknob won't hurt your feelings

00:37:26.980 either. Uh, a tree will never rob a bank. Okay. An, an ant will never, um, bully a kid on a,

00:37:33.580 on a school bus. Okay. So the color blue will never do anything bad to you because all of these

00:37:40.080 things are incapable of, of, of moral evil. All right, let's see. This is from the beardocratic 0.62

00:37:48.220 fascist. Greetings, Matt of the Walsh. Just want to know your thoughts on teen beards. I know beards 0.94

00:37:54.880 are great, but teen beards look like someone cut the bristles off a toothbrush and glued them onto 0.63

00:37:59.160 a bloody face. So what should I tell my young friends? I know it's harsh, but I think they

00:38:03.300 might have to, dare I say, shave. Uh, well, you are no beardocratic fascist. If you would ever tell 0.87

00:38:10.460 anyone to shave man or woman, okay, child or adult, uh, listen, yeah, teenage beards are not

00:38:19.760 aesthetically pleasing, but, but you know, you need to experiment with your facial hair. And we,

00:38:23.040 we all went through awkward phases with our facial hair. You experiment, you figure out what works for

00:38:27.840 you, but to ever discourage anyone from expressing their themselves through facial hair, I think is

00:38:37.820 just, it is a, an abomination. And how dare you? This is from Miriam says, huge fan of the podcast.

00:38:44.680 On Monday, you were talking about the alcohol debate in the church and you kept saying miracle.

00:38:48.940 It is pronounced miracle. It hurts my brain to hear you say it wrong. My name is Miriam,

00:38:54.080 meaning that people replace the I with an A all the time. It brings forth a certain anger in me

00:38:58.200 that is only remedied by throwing my phone out the window. Please stop abusing the word miracle,

00:39:03.460 or I might have to go to therapy. Well, well, Miriam, uh, I, who are, who are you to say? Okay.

00:39:11.600 It's in the eye of the beholder here. If I want to say miracle, I'm going to say miracle, Miriam.

00:39:18.460 How are you supposed to say miracle? Is that what people say? I don't know. It might,

00:39:21.460 must be a Baltimore thing. I don't know. Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle. It's a miracle.

00:39:30.360 Cool. You know, now I've forgotten how to say the word because of you, Miriam. Um, let's see here.

00:39:39.800 Got one more. We'll go to Christy.

00:39:45.820 Says, uh, Matt, I appreciate your thoughtful perspectives on a variety of issues, including

00:39:51.080 theology. I was genuinely shocked. Genuinely. That's another one you could get on me for

00:39:55.740 pronouncing strangely. Uh, I was genuinely shocked when you said that the rapture is a new teaching

00:40:01.980 that didn't exist for thousands of years after Christ. I had no idea that something I've always

00:40:06.380 assumed was a universally Christian doctrine I've been taught from childhood is even debated. And I

00:40:11.160 was intrigued to hear why you didn't believe it was actually a thing. I was disappointed when you

00:40:15.960 said that the only verse rapture believing people use to support their belief are the Matthew verses.

00:40:20.680 I had literally just read Luke 17 to my kids that morning, uh, which says when the son of man

00:40:25.660 returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day. In these days, um, the people enjoyed banquets and

00:40:31.000 parties and wedding night, uh, right up to the time Noah entered his boat and the flood came and

00:40:34.800 destroyed them all. And the world will be as it was in the days of lot. People went about their daily

00:40:38.980 business, eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building until the morning lot left

00:40:43.320 Sodom. Then fire and burning sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Yes, it will be

00:40:47.700 business as usual, right up to the day when the son of man revealed, um, uh, is revealed on that day.

00:40:55.220 A person out on the deck of a roof must go down into the house to pack a person out in the field

00:41:00.180 must not return home. Remember what happened to lots wife. If you cling to your life, you will lose

00:41:04.480 it. And if you let your life go, you will save it that night. Two people will be asleep in one bed.

00:41:09.240 One will be taken the other left. Two women will be grinding flour together at the middle. 1.00

00:41:12.700 One will be taken the other left end of Bible verse. These verses sure make it sound like Jesus

00:41:19.420 is coming is taking is something to watch for. And we are the ones who will be taken.

00:41:24.600 Other verses of, of warning to be alert and watchful also come right to mind without even

00:41:29.980 searching the verses about the bridesmaids whose lamps are empty when the bridegroom comes.

00:41:34.280 I've always assumed those verses refer to being watchful and ready for the coming of Christ.

00:41:38.140 Um, also the verses I've always read as an actual description of the rapture quote, the,

00:41:43.100 the trump shall sound, the trumpet shall sound and the dead in Christ will first rise.

00:41:47.280 Would you mind giving this topic a little more thorough treatment? It felt like you set up

00:41:50.940 a straw man when you said the Matthew verses are the ones only ever used to defend the idea

00:41:54.780 of a rapture. Uh, okay. So I don't think that the Matthew verse, I don't think I said the

00:41:59.060 Matthew verse is the only one used. I think I said it's one of the main ones used. And in

00:42:02.620 fact, uh, you, you use that same one, uh, you used Luke's version of, uh, the Matthew

00:42:09.780 verse, but it's the same verse. Just, you're getting it from two different gospels. It's

00:42:13.880 the same, same thing, uh, phrase a little bit differently. So that's the first thing.

00:42:19.860 Also, I don't, the, the, the, I'm not sure what translation you were giving me there, but

00:42:24.800 you know, this is a translation that uses phrases like business as usual, uh, which is certainly

00:42:30.480 not a phrase that existed in the first century. So I'm not sure what translation you use. There

00:42:34.560 might be a translation problem here as well. Um, what I'll say again is that I think the

00:42:41.300 verse that you quoted there at length clearly refers to the wicked people being taken. It

00:42:48.400 does not refer to, uh, the good people being taken. This is about the damnation of the wicked

00:42:55.780 says when the son of man returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day. And then it goes 0.57

00:43:01.880 on from there. So in Noah's day, the people who were taken, taken from the earth through

00:43:08.200 the form of a flood were the wicked ones. So I think that's the point in that verse. Um,

00:43:15.180 what I'll say about some of the other ones you mentioned, uh, I mean, there's one, there's

00:43:19.940 one you didn't even mention. I think it's in Thessalonians that talks about, uh, you know,

00:43:24.220 the righteous ascending and meeting Christ in the clouds. You didn't even mention that

00:43:28.980 one. I'll give you that one. Maybe that, maybe that's probably your best one to pull

00:43:31.960 from, but there again, now I just think that, yes. Now when you, when you're proof texting,

00:43:37.340 when you're, when you're looking for a verse that matches a theological point of view that

00:43:40.700 you already held before even looking at the Bible, you're going to be able to find a verse

00:43:45.600 that will support it. And that's the problem with, with proof texting and looking at things

00:43:49.220 out of context, which I think the rapture is pulled out of context. So yes, that particular

00:43:53.180 verse in Thessalonians that would match up with the rapture, but it's just, you cannot

00:43:59.660 hang this entire idea of the rapture on that one little verse. And that's just, that's an

00:44:06.320 invalid way of looking at the Bible in general. And something else I'll keep in mind here is

00:44:10.040 that, um, the, maybe it seems like semantics, but it's really not. God, we know that heaven

00:44:20.260 does not literally exist in the clouds, right? We, we know that. I mean, children might think

00:44:25.880 of it that way, but we know that if you go up, uh, you're going to find clouds and you're

00:44:30.680 going to eventually leave the atmosphere and you'll be in outer space. Heaven is not literally

00:44:34.360 physically located above us. When we speak about God above and when we look up to pray and all that

00:44:40.500 kind of stuff, that's metaphorical language. So, uh, now maybe there'll be people meeting

00:44:48.080 Jesus in the clouds at the end of time, but that's not really Jesus. What really even would

00:44:53.040 be the point of that? Because heaven is not actually literally in the clouds. So what I'm

00:44:58.260 saying is I would see that as metaphorical language, the same way when Jesus talks about

00:45:02.380 God above and God being above us and in the heavens and so on, which Jesus does talk about,

00:45:07.500 we take that metaphorically because we know that he doesn't, he's not literally up sitting

00:45:11.900 in a cloud, right? Um, now you could say, well, Jesus ascended into heaven and we are led to

00:45:19.680 believe by scripture that there was a physical ascension. Like he actually rose above the people

00:45:24.740 who were witnessing it. And yes, but again, there, um, it's not like Jesus had to physically

00:45:31.800 go up to get into heaven. So if he physically ascended in front of the, uh, the people who

00:45:37.600 witnessed it, then, um, I would say, I would think that that was for their benefit, you know,

00:45:45.460 because of the, the, the symbolic significance of going up above in a spiritual sense.

00:45:54.760 It wasn't something that he didn't have to go that direction to get to heaven. It was just

00:45:58.620 something for the benefit of the rest of us. And we could talk about the ascension and it makes,

00:46:04.420 that makes a lot more sense to us just sort of intuitively than God. I don't know how, I don't

00:46:09.600 know how else you would refer to it. If God just were to, or if Jesus were to just vanish into another

00:46:15.000 realm, into another, uh, into, into, you know, heaven, uh, how would we even refer to that? How would

00:46:21.300 we intuitively conceive of it? So that's what the ascension is for. But at the end of time,

00:46:28.660 I'm not really sure what the point of those theatrics would be. Maybe, maybe that's how it

00:46:32.780 will be. I don't know. But what I'm saying is the overall doctrine of the rapture is a modern

00:46:39.460 invention. It's from the 19th century. And for centuries, Christians read those verses and they

00:46:45.740 had no concept of the rapture as we know it today. Now, just because it's modern doesn't necessarily

00:46:53.000 make it wrong, but it should make you pretty suspicious of it. Why is it that every Christian 1.00

00:46:58.880 before that point read the Bible and never noticed that? And now all of a sudden we do.

00:47:07.720 Is it because we have some sort of new insight that's new to us that the Holy Spirit kept hidden

00:47:12.800 from Christians for 18, 19 centuries? Or is it because we've just come up with a new theological

00:47:18.700 concept and we're looking for justification in the Bible? I think it's probably more of the latter.

00:47:26.560 Uh, but that's my opinion. All right, we'll leave it there. Thanks everybody for watching.

00:47:31.060 Thanks for listening. Godspeed.

00:47:42.800 Hey everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of the Andrew Klavan Show. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

00:47:50.100 burns and no one wants to mention the spate of church desecrations and arson fires that's been

00:47:56.480 sweeping through France all through Lent. We'll talk about it on the Andrew Klavan Show. I'm Andrew Klavan.

The Matt Walsh Show - April 16, 2019

Ep. 240 - The Case Against Ugly Churches

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