The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 3 - College gives seminar on ＂Christian privilege.＂ Here's why that's insane

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the show, everybody. Thanks for watching. And before we get going, I wanted to just answer one question because a lot of people have asked me, they've said, you know, Matt, you have your own official podcast now with the Daily Wire. You're moving up in the world. Does that mean you'll stop doing your videos in the car now?

00:00:17.420 Well, because, you know, all the other guys, they got the fancy studio and they've got the desk and they've got a building and they've got electricity and they've got, you know, special effects and all that stuff.

00:00:30.860 But here you are screaming into a webcam in your car like the disappointing stepchild of the Daily Wire. Will you stop doing that now? And the answer is no. As you can clearly see, I'm in my car right now. I won't stop doing them in my car.

00:00:45.340 Why do I do them in my car? That's the other big question. And to be honest with you, it's because I live in my car. I'm a I'm a nomad. I just wander the earth in my car doing Facebook videos.

00:01:00.320 And the Daily Wire pays me in bottles of whiskey and cans of beans. And so that's why I'm in my car. You can stop asking now, because honestly, I feel a little judged, to be honest.

00:01:11.520 All right. Let's talk about privilege. I think that's a good there's a good segue here.

00:01:18.900 I'm a white Christian, heterosexual, cisgendered human male, which means that I've got a ton of privilege.

00:01:27.600 I mean, I've got privilege stacked on top of privilege, stacked on top of privilege, even though I'm doing videos in my car.

00:01:32.760 I still I don't have as much privilege as, say, Michael Knowles, but I have a lot of privilege.

00:01:40.300 So I know a little bit. I know a little bit about it. I have a firsthand experience with privilege.

00:01:45.240 But there's one particular aspect of that privilege that the left is starting to focus on more now, and that is Christian.

00:01:52.060 We know about white male privilege. We know about heterosexual privilege.

00:01:55.100 But let's talk about Christian privilege. George Washington University is hosting a training session this week, I believe, on Thursday.

00:02:05.380 So just a few days after Easter, they figured this is a good day for this training session.

00:02:09.260 They're doing a training session on Christian privilege. And I want to read just a little bit about this training session.

00:02:17.420 The Christian Post, the Privilege Post, I should say, had an article about it.

00:02:21.560 So a description of the training session asks, how do Christians in the USA experience life in an easier way than non-Christians?

00:02:32.180 Even with the separation of church and state, are there places where Christians have built-in advantages over non-Christians? 0.98

00:02:42.300 I haven't been to the training session yet, but I'm going to bet that the answer to that question is yes.

00:02:49.080 How do we have it easier?

00:02:54.360 Because this is what the left's all about now, these days, is it's about kind of keeping score and keeping track and figuring out who has it easier than who.

00:03:06.600 So we're figuring out who has more of a right to complain.

00:03:09.660 And so there's this constant competition.

00:03:11.280 I talk about sometimes the left has a victim hierarchy or a victim pyramid, if you will.

00:03:18.340 And there's this constant jockeying for position among the different groups and demographics on the left, wanting to be at the top of the pyramid, wanting to be the most victimized victims of all.

00:03:29.900 Well, because that's, you know, that's power on the left, that's currency.

00:03:36.280 But if you're a Christian and you're not familiar with how things work on the left, and you hear this, you'll say, what are you talking about?

00:03:46.560 What privilege do I have?

00:03:48.880 And I sometimes will ask that question about myself, even about white male privilege, which is the most privileged privilege of all.

00:03:56.020 And I think, where is that privilege?

00:04:00.260 What can I do with it?

00:04:02.020 I mean, can I cash it in somewhere?

00:04:04.280 Is there a privilege exchange where you cash it in for dollar bills?

00:04:08.040 Is it like with a Visa credit card points, you know, where you accrue points and then you can cash it in for airline tickets or a discount on a hotel or something?

00:04:18.460 How does it work?

00:04:19.140 Well, fortunately, one of my favorite websites, everydayfeminism.com, and I visit it every day because it's everyday feminism, folks. 1.00

00:04:28.700 Not every week, not annual feminism, everyday feminism. 1.00

00:04:32.460 They did an article a couple of years ago titled, Don't Believe in Christian Privilege?

00:04:39.660 These 15 examples will leave no doubt.

00:04:42.680 So I thought, because I imagine that the George Washington University, these are probably the things they're going to talk about.

00:04:52.320 So let's go through, I didn't even really look at this before I started doing the video, but let's go through a few.

00:04:57.440 We won't do all 15, but here are a few of the examples that everyday feminism gives to prove that if you're a Christian, you have privilege. 1.00

00:05:10.000 All right, right off the bat, number one, you get time off for your major religious holidays.

00:05:19.920 See, this is a fascinating one to me because everybody gets off for Christian holidays.

00:05:25.820 Everybody gets off for Christmas, for Easter.

00:05:27.520 And I would think that if you get to take off for somebody else's religious holiday, then that's privilege, isn't it?

00:05:38.720 I mean, that's appropriation.

00:05:41.140 Isn't that what appropriation is?

00:05:42.700 Everybody's appropriating Christmas.

00:05:44.100 You're taking off, you're taking a Christmas vacation, or you're taking a winter vacation, which coincidentally happens right around Christmas.

00:05:50.200 So aren't you the one with privilege if you get to enjoy the benefits of my religion and you're not even a part of it?

00:05:58.140 I would think that's how it works.

00:06:00.580 If somebody came to me, if the Daily Wire came to me and said,

00:06:04.280 Matt, we want to give you a month off paid vacation because it's Ramadan. 1.00

00:06:10.480 And I doubt they would ever say that.

00:06:12.040 But if they did, I would say, wow, thank you.

00:06:15.240 I'm not Muslim, but I will take the time off.

00:06:18.160 I'll take the vacation if you're going to give it to me.

00:06:20.900 Great.

00:06:22.060 And so now that's when I would be privileged.

00:06:24.240 I get to enjoy this time off even though I'm not Muslim. 0.99

00:06:28.300 So that doesn't make any sense to me.

00:06:31.560 What are some other examples?

00:06:33.840 You can wear symbols of your religion without being stereotyped as dangerous, I guess.

00:06:40.140 But everybody in America can wear symbols of their religion, so I don't think that's anything special.

00:06:44.140 Well, politicians who create and uphold laws are likely to share your faith.

00:06:51.680 Well, except for the whole other major political party, the Democrat Party,

00:06:59.060 which famously booed God at their convention and kicked God off their platform.

00:07:05.440 The Democrat Party, one of their great projects is the destruction and suppression of Christianity

00:07:13.400 and Christian morals in American society.

00:07:15.880 So, yeah, except for them, except for the most anti-Christian political party in American history,

00:07:23.380 except for those guys, yeah, the ones that were in charge for the last eight years,

00:07:26.720 yeah, except for them, I guess that's totally correct.

00:07:28.560 Politicians who share your faith can base decisions on their religion.

00:07:37.600 I guess, just like secular politicians can base their decisions on their secularism,

00:07:43.620 atheist politicians on their atheism.

00:07:46.140 That's the thing is you can, everybody makes decisions based on their convictions. 0.99

00:07:51.360 That's why it's so stupid when people say, oh, you're just saying that or doing that 0.99

00:07:56.180 because that's part of your religion. 1.00

00:07:59.840 Okay, yeah, these are my convictions.

00:08:01.860 You also have, that's like saying, well, you're just doing that because those are your convictions.

00:08:07.620 Yes, that's what it means to be a person with intellectual integrity.

00:08:12.460 What else do we have here?

00:08:19.140 Your community can build and attend a place of worship without being targeted for violence.

00:08:25.380 Well, of course, you got to tell that to the church down in Texas where over 20 of them were slaughtered

00:08:30.080 while they were in church.

00:08:33.300 In fact, there have been several church attacks in this country just over the last couple of years.

00:08:40.400 People of your faith who commit acts of violence aren't said to represent your entire faith.

00:08:50.280 Yeah, well, that's, first of all, that's not true.

00:08:53.880 If anyone ever does commit violence in the name of Jesus Christ,

00:08:59.180 you can bet that that will certainly be taken and placed at the feet of all Christians. 1.00

00:09:04.820 Okay, the anti-Christian people in this country love, if they can, to blame violence on Christians,

00:09:11.640 and they always try to.

00:09:13.080 But do you know why it's usually unsuccessful?

00:09:15.640 Do you know why it usually doesn't work?

00:09:18.040 Do you know why Christians usually aren't blamed for these acts of violence? 1.00

00:09:22.980 Do you know why?

00:09:24.320 Because Christians aren't the ones committing acts of violence in the name of their religion.

00:09:30.060 Christians aren't the ones committing terrorist acts.

00:09:35.380 That's why we don't get blamed for terrorism as much, because we aren't doing it.

00:09:40.880 So if you want to call that privilege, then yeah, sure, we are a religion that doesn't have the same propensity to create terrorists.

00:09:49.680 Yes, of course, public school is this bastion of Christianity.

00:10:02.120 We all know that, of course.

00:10:05.020 You're not pressured to celebrate another religion's holidays.

00:10:09.320 We'll just leave it there.

00:10:10.600 Let me just clarify that for anyone who maybe feels pressured to celebrate Christian holidays.

00:10:18.560 You are not pressured.

00:10:19.880 We are not pressuring you.

00:10:20.960 In fact, our complaint goes the other way.

00:10:23.940 We don't like how Christmas has been taken and secularized and taken by secular people and just turned into this non-religious holiday. 0.67

00:10:32.540 We aren't pressuring you to celebrate Christmas at all.

00:10:35.680 If you're not Christian, we're totally fine if you don't celebrate Christmas. 1.00

00:10:39.540 I have never heard any Christian person complain that there aren't enough non-Christians celebrating Christmas.

00:10:46.920 So you're totally cool not to celebrate it.

00:10:50.120 This is the interesting thing about privilege.

00:10:54.700 Because it seems to me that Christians are the ones who live in a culture that is basically against them. 0.52

00:11:06.420 Christians are the ones who don't have the right to run their business as they see fit in this country. 1.00

00:11:12.060 Christians can be forced to make a product or perform a service for something that they find morally objectionable. 0.83

00:11:21.040 Only Christians are targeted for that. 0.92

00:11:23.080 It doesn't happen to anybody else.

00:11:24.180 It's not happening to atheists.

00:11:25.440 It's not happening to Muslims very conspicuously.

00:11:28.700 Even though they have the same beliefs when it comes to homosexuality, Muslim businesses aren't being targeted.

00:11:35.700 This is Christian businesses.

00:11:38.320 So, no, it's only Christians being targeted in that way.

00:11:42.560 And then all these other examples of privilege are just fantasies.

00:11:46.600 They're just delusions.

00:11:47.820 But, do I believe that Christians have privilege in America? 0.98

00:11:55.260 And the answer to that is yes, absolutely.

00:11:58.080 Sure, we're privileged.

00:12:00.580 American Christians are privileged.

00:12:04.460 Because everybody in America is privileged.

00:12:07.820 We all have privileges in America.

00:12:11.980 We are privileged to live here.

00:12:14.100 And that's the problem with privilege is that, invariably, it's a college-educated, upper-middle-class brat who's lecturing us about privilege, failing to see that in America we all are privileged compared to the rest of the world, especially if you're in college.

00:12:31.780 I mean, this is how it always goes.

00:12:34.340 Usually it's not someone in Ethiopia lecturing Americans about privilege.

00:12:39.600 Usually it's a college student who's never worked a day in their life, and now they're taking a four-year vacation at this college where they're partying every night.

00:12:50.080 They're not even paying for it.

00:12:52.640 And they're the ones turning around and lecturing us about privilege.

00:12:57.140 And then we have to listen to the lecture and say, okay, fine, yeah, go back to your dorm room and let me get back to work.

00:13:02.500 Let me go home to my kids who I take care of.

00:13:04.700 You know, let me go back to the house that I'm paying for.

00:13:06.780 Remember, we all should feel privileged to live in America as opposed to Zimbabwe or something like that. 1.00

00:13:18.320 In fact, I don't feel ashamed of our privilege because our privilege comes from the fact that we have, you know, relatively, we are a relatively free and prosperous country.

00:13:31.180 My shame, I don't feel ashamed of that.

00:13:35.320 My shame comes from the fact that we are less free and less prosperous, and therefore we have less privilege today than we did in the past.

00:13:46.400 Because these are privileges that were fought for and won and earned by our ancestors and handed to us, and we've been in the process of squandering them.

00:13:54.400 So don't be ashamed of your privilege, the privilege that was given to you by your ancestors and the people who founded this country.

00:14:01.340 Be ashamed of the fact that you have less of it now than you should because you squandered it.

00:14:07.860 And it's not just us.

00:14:09.580 You know, I also go back to the baby boomers. 0.95

00:14:11.540 I mean, this has been a process of squandering our privilege that's been going on for a couple of generations now.

00:14:16.980 So we all have privilege.

00:14:21.180 But if you want to single out Christians and use this term Christian privilege, well, that's a problem.

00:14:28.560 Because across the world, across time, across history, Christians are among the least privileged people.

00:14:35.800 Even now, today, Christians are easily among the least privileged and most persecuted group in the world.

00:14:49.000 There was a report recently that revealed that Christian persecution and genocide is worse now than it's ever been in history.

00:14:57.420 If Christians in Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Egypt, many other countries are regularly imprisoned, tortured, beaten, raped, martyred, their churches are destroyed, their houses are burned.

00:15:15.200 They have to meet and worship in secret underground.

00:15:18.380 You know, we're back in the catacombs in Rome and many parts of the world.

00:15:23.040 They live their lives in constant danger just because they're Christian. 0.99

00:15:26.660 So tell them about Christian privilege, okay? 0.95

00:15:30.220 There's about 215 million Christians in the world who face what is referred to as extreme persecution.

00:15:39.220 So that's persecution that is violent, oppressive persecution.

00:15:46.200 And it's estimated that around a million Christians have been slaughtered since 2005.

00:15:53.780 There's no way to know exactly how many because the countries that do this don't exactly keep records.

00:16:00.940 But we do know and we can kind of come to estimates based on the fact that Christianity has been drastically, dramatically reduced in parts of the world where it's existed for nearly 2,000 years.

00:16:11.720 Just look at Egypt. 0.97

00:16:13.700 St. Mark, tradition tells us that St. Mark brought Christianity to Egypt in the early part of the first century.

00:16:20.340 And now that seed that he's planted and that's been there and growing for 2,000 years has been almost entirely ripped up.

00:16:26.380 And every month you hear about another massacre that's happening in Egypt.

00:16:31.560 The Coptic Christians have been almost completely driven out of that country.

00:16:35.140 So all across the world, believers are being blown up, incinerated, shot, beheaded.

00:16:43.140 And not just in Muslim countries, although largely in Muslim countries. 0.85

00:16:49.180 But the worst Christian persecutor in the world is North Korea.

00:16:53.160 In North Korea, if you're a Christian, they'll ship you off to the gulag, to the concentration camp, and you're not coming out. 0.95

00:16:58.880 In China, Christianity is still criminalized.

00:17:01.400 So again, tell them about Christian privilege. 0.51

00:17:07.980 Maybe invite them, invite some of them to your seminar on Christian privilege, because they'll be fascinated to learn about it.

00:17:17.080 It will be news to them.

00:17:19.940 I'll tell you that.

00:17:21.840 Now, there are many examples of this persecution of Christians across the world.

00:17:30.880 I wanted to point to just one while we're on the subject, because I think this is a particularly powerful and tragic, but also quite common example of the persecution they face.

00:17:45.280 This was a year or two ago in Egypt.

00:17:49.460 There were a group of Coptic Christians.

00:17:51.000 They were on buses headed to a monastery in the desert to pray.

00:17:57.780 They were on a pilgrimage.

00:18:00.220 And this is a dangerous thing to do in Egypt. 0.97

00:18:05.940 Whereas in this country, yeah, a Christian can get in his car, drive to church on Sunday, 10 minutes down the road, and there's not going to be any Islamic militants patrolling the area ready to put a bullet in their heads and make slaves of their children. 0.88

00:18:21.340 That's the case in Egypt. 0.91

00:18:22.660 And yet, Christians in this country still can't be bothered to get up and go to church, even though there's nothing at all stopping them. 1.00

00:18:28.700 So they are privileged in that way, in the way that we all are privileged in America.

00:18:34.120 But these Christians, they knew the risks, and they did it because they felt compelled spiritually. 0.51

00:18:40.080 And the buses were stopped by these Muslim militants, and they boarded the buses. 0.92

00:18:47.280 But they didn't just shoot indiscriminately and kill everybody on the bus. 0.84

00:18:51.140 Instead, they pulled the people out of the bus, and they interrogated them.

00:18:56.300 And they asked them first, are you Christian?

00:18:59.420 And then they asked them, or demanded, rather, that they renounce Christianity and convert to Islam.

00:19:05.440 So basically, these martyrs, and all the ones that died, they all were martyred, including the children.

00:19:13.780 These martyrs had to choose martyrdom twice.

00:19:19.200 Because, just imagine, they've got the gun to their head, and they're asked the first question, are you a Christian?

00:19:25.960 They have to summon all this courage to say yes. 0.52

00:19:29.160 And they probably imagine that they'll be killed right there, that as soon as they say yes, that's it.

00:19:34.900 But then they're told, okay, convert to Islam. 0.74

00:19:39.700 And now they have another chance to kind of back away and save their lives and take the cowardly way out.

00:19:47.740 And they have to summon all that courage once again.

00:19:50.200 And look these people in the eye, holding guns to their heads, and say no.

00:20:00.720 And I think it's pretty powerful that in this permissive age that we live in, and this permissive culture,

00:20:05.940 in a culture where Christians are, in our culture anyway, are terrified of saying no to anyone about anything.

00:20:13.240 They won't say no to anything.

00:20:14.580 I mean, this is the age of tolerance and acceptance and welcoming and permitting.

00:20:22.440 So how powerful is it that the word that made these Christians into martyrs was no?

00:20:33.000 I think there's a lesson we could take from that.

00:20:35.680 And then they were killed and left there in the desert to rot.

00:20:38.720 So, I don't know if George Washington University, I don't know if they're going to cover that story.

00:20:47.380 I don't know if they'll mention that.

00:20:50.480 But if you're trying to create this image of a privileged Christianity,

00:20:59.440 of a Christianity that has power and wealth and an oppressive Christianity, 1.00

00:21:07.280 a Christianity that's out there oppressing the world, 1.00

00:21:10.560 if you want to believe that, it requires you to never look beyond your own borders.

00:21:18.360 All these people in college who pretend to be so worldly,

00:21:21.340 hey, let's learn about other cultures,

00:21:23.480 they know nothing about the world.

00:21:25.600 They know nothing about other cultures. 0.93

00:21:28.320 Because when you go into that pursuit,

00:21:30.400 when you pursue knowledge about the world,

00:21:35.880 yet you're hampered by your bigotries,

00:21:39.000 by your anti-Christian bigotry,

00:21:40.980 and you have this narrative that you're trying desperately to protect,

00:21:45.000 this narrative of the privileged Christian,

00:21:47.680 of the oppressive Christian, 1.00

00:21:49.260 well, when you have that there and that's the blinder,

00:21:51.740 and then you go out and you try to learn about the world,

00:21:53.400 you can't learn anything.

00:21:54.160 Because everywhere you turn,

00:21:55.580 once you leave the borders of this country,

00:21:57.580 everywhere you turn,

00:21:59.140 you find evidence to the contrary. 0.99

00:22:03.160 You find that Christians are being killed and slaughtered and martyred. 0.93

00:22:08.080 And also, by the way, 0.97

00:22:10.100 Christians are in every nook and cranny and crevice of this world, 1.00

00:22:17.500 helping people,

00:22:19.320 ministering to them,

00:22:20.820 feeding the poor,

00:22:22.340 treating the sick.

00:22:23.340 It's Christians doing that. 1.00

00:22:24.540 It's not atheists. 0.61

00:22:26.120 Okay, there aren't millions of American atheists

00:22:28.060 all across the world

00:22:29.420 in all of these God-forsaken,

00:22:32.860 impoverished, dangerous places,

00:22:35.600 setting up hospitals and missions

00:22:38.280 and helping people and feeding them.

00:22:40.160 It's not atheists doing that. 0.94

00:22:41.420 It's Christians. 0.79

00:22:42.940 All across the world.

00:22:44.240 But if you want to believe in the privileged Christian, 0.99

00:22:50.180 you also have to ignore that fact as well.

00:22:54.460 All right.

00:22:55.020 Thanks for watching, everybody.

00:22:56.160 And thanks for joining the discussion.

00:22:59.900 I'll talk to you tomorrow.

00:23:00.700 Thank you.

00:23:04.860 Thank you.

The Matt Walsh Show - April 04, 2018

Ep. 3 - College gives seminar on ＂Christian privilege.＂ Here's why that's insane

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