The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 71 - The War On Christmas： A History

00:00:00.460 Today, I assume the role of candy cane-chomping Douglas MacArthur in The War on Christmas.

00:00:05.860 Does it exist? Are we winning? I will explain why the War on Christmas really matters,

00:00:10.880 and I will be wearing this helmet the whole time in case any lefties try to break in and attack me with euphemistic language.

00:00:17.120 Plus, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:27.840 Is there a war on Christmas?

00:00:30.160 Before we get into it, I have to talk about some Christmas presents.

00:00:33.060 It is Christmastime, so the first thing that I want to talk about are movement watches.

00:00:38.780 You can see I'm wearing it. Any great general has to wear, any great cultural general has to wear a watch into battle

00:00:44.280 to know what time it is and what end is up. Movement does this really, really well.

00:00:49.240 Holiday shopping can be very tough thanks to movement.

00:00:52.020 All that gift-giving anxiety can disappear with the press of a button.

00:00:55.520 These watches make the perfect purchase for any guy in your life. They really do.

00:00:58.880 They're so sleek. They're very fashionable.

00:01:01.940 They also start at just $95.

00:01:04.640 So if you went into a department store to get a watch like this, you'd probably be paying $300, $400.

00:01:09.160 Movement has innovated. They've shaken up the whole watch industry by selling direct to you online.

00:01:15.040 You can finish your holiday shopping and get a movement watch for someone on your list.

00:01:19.840 Now, the company was started by these two broke college kids who wanted to wear nice, stylish watches,

00:01:26.000 but they couldn't afford them, as broke college kids want to do, so they started their own watch company.

00:01:32.340 You know, this is American ingenuity at its finest.

00:01:36.080 It's a great time and a great price point for Christmas.

00:01:39.680 You can give someone a really high-quality gift for a reasonable price.

00:01:43.360 They begin at $95, and at such great prices, you know, there's classic design, there's quality construction, there's styled minimalism.

00:01:51.540 You don't usually get that for under $100, so I would take advantage of this.

00:01:55.480 They've sold over 1 million watches in 160 countries and today.

00:02:01.140 This Christmas came early for you guys because you will get 15% off plus free shipping and free returns by going to mvmt.com slash covfefe.

00:02:13.460 That is C-O-V-F-E-F-E, mvmt.com slash covfefe.

00:02:19.040 I recommend doing it just to type in the promo code, but I think you'll like the watches when you get there.

00:02:24.340 It's got a clean design, great fashion statement.

00:02:26.400 Now is the time to step up your watch game and to step up the watch game of that man in your life who just, you know, doesn't keep track of time, doesn't really dress like an adult.

00:02:36.140 Adults should be wearing watches. 0.93

00:02:38.580 mvmt.com slash covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E, join the movement.

00:02:44.520 So, is there a war on Christmas?

00:02:46.160 Of course there's a war on Christmas.

00:02:48.000 Stop trying to be a cool guy and get the New York Times to like you by pretending there isn't.

00:02:52.200 There obviously is.

00:02:53.080 It's now fashionable in some conservative circles where people care what the New York Times thinks to say that the war on Christmas is some crazy illusion of conservatives.

00:03:02.120 And I'm, you know, I'm not that kind of conservative.

00:03:03.940 No, no, I'm educated and fancy.

00:03:05.960 And I think, wait, wait, don't tell me is clever.

00:03:08.480 I'm not one of those middle state rubes who pays attention to the degraded culture belched out every year by our sophisticated bettors on the coast. 0.66

00:03:16.560 Stop it.

00:03:17.480 Stop it.

00:03:18.200 You're embarrassing yourself.

00:03:19.400 Of course there is a war on Christmas.

00:03:21.000 To begin, here's the first bit of evidence.

00:03:23.080 Barack Obama struck the word Christmas from the White House Christmas card.

00:03:27.180 A quick look back through history shows this is not the norm.

00:03:30.380 Calvin Coolidge wrote in his 1927 White House Christmas card,

00:03:34.220 The real spirit of Christmas, if we think on these things, there will be a born in us a savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.

00:03:44.180 FDR wrote some variation of Merry Christmas from the President and Mrs. Roosevelt each of the 150 years he reigned in the White House.

00:03:50.620 Harry Truman wrote, quote,

00:03:52.440 As 1950 ebbs to its close, our hearts turn once more to Bethlehem and to the coming of a little child, the divine infant that brought love to a weary world.

00:04:03.440 Six paragraphs later, six paragraphs later, he concluded, quote, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill, peace and goodwill toward men.

00:04:12.320 Eisenhower wrote a curt, typical season's greetings for Christmas and New Year.

00:04:17.640 JFK, happy Christmas. 0.70

00:04:19.240 The pieces of LBJ's card available still don't show the wording, but given his preference for four-letter epithets, that's probably for the best.

00:04:26.560 Language on the other cards is hard to track down as well until we get to George W. Bush, who included verses from Psalms on the Christmas card.

00:04:33.740 Then we get to Barack Obama, who not only struck mention of Christmas entirely, but according to his own White House social secretary, tried to ban the creche, the nativity scene, from the East Room of the White House.

00:04:46.660 Now, why would you do that, you ask?

00:04:48.560 Why would he want to do that?

00:04:50.000 Because they wanted to make Christmas more, quote, inclusive.

00:04:53.980 That's the line offered, by the way.

00:04:55.340 That's how you know that there is a war on Christmas.

00:04:57.500 As school districts will replace Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with the vague happy holidays, retail outlets, work environments, Christmas parties have become vague holiday parties.

00:05:07.860 In many circles, particularly in the cultural centers of the country, to say Merry Christmas has become a political act that expresses to the retail worker or the acquaintance your political and politically incorrect point of view.

00:05:21.480 And if you harp on this long enough, as I do, as I do every year, you will inevitably get the same reply.

00:05:27.500 Well, yeah, but why shouldn't the greeting be more inclusive?

00:05:31.620 You know, not everybody celebrates Christmas, you know, and that's the moving of the goalposts.

00:05:36.460 First, there wasn't a war on Christmas.

00:05:37.840 Now, there is, but it doesn't matter.

00:05:39.700 That's how you know.

00:05:40.640 The other trick that those who deny the cultural movement will say is that it isn't a war.

00:05:45.680 The language, it's hyperbolic. 0.98

00:05:47.100 It's ridiculous. 0.97

00:05:47.820 There isn't a war. 0.96

00:05:48.760 You don't say.

00:05:49.560 There isn't.

00:05:49.900 There aren't guns.

00:05:50.780 That's true.

00:05:51.260 There aren't tanks and bullets.

00:05:53.000 Christmas is not literally being cut down by machine gun fire.

00:05:56.580 That's because the war on Christmas is a figure of speech, much like the war on poverty, say.

00:06:01.640 Poverty is not being cut down by bullets because, like Christmas, it isn't material.

00:06:06.840 What is meant by the, quote, war on Christmas is a battle of language and culture.

00:06:10.920 There is a belligerent group of left-wing cultural warriors which seeks to replace clear, traditional, precise language, Christmas,

00:06:18.520 with vague, meaningless euphemisms like happy holidays and season's greetings.

00:06:23.800 Of course, both phrases have been around for a long time.

00:06:27.060 But whereas in the past they referred specifically to Christmas and New Year's,

00:06:30.480 like Eisenhower's Christmas card, season's greetings for Christmas and New Year,

00:06:34.400 now they serve as a replacement for the politically correct term,

00:06:38.040 what the modern mind considers the grave offense of Christmastime, Merry Christmas.

00:06:43.520 But aren't there other major holidays during Christmastime beside Christmas and New Year's?

00:06:47.700 This is usually what they ask.

00:06:48.880 Not really.

00:06:49.940 There are holidays, to be sure, but no major ones.

00:06:52.300 The closest contender we have is Hanukkah, which is the Jewish festival of lights. 0.64

00:06:57.100 But while Hanukkah is indeed an ancient holiday, it dates back about 2,000 years, it is a relatively minor holiday.

00:07:03.600 Major Jewish holidays are biblical.

00:07:05.480 They feature restrictions on work.

00:07:07.280 Because Hanukkah is non-biblical, there are few religious restrictions on work.

00:07:11.460 According to historian Diane Ashton, Hanukkah rose to prominence in America, as it did not in the rest of the world,

00:07:18.120 because of two reform rabbis in 19th century Cincinnati, who worried their children had little connection to the synagogue.

00:07:25.180 Before that, there is little record of Hanukkah celebrations.

00:07:28.320 The rabbis modeled the celebration in gift-giving after Christmas.

00:07:31.620 As Ashton explains, quote,

00:07:33.000 They didn't see Christmas as something they could do easily, because it's Christian, 1.00

00:07:36.780 but they did want to do something like that, because it was American.

00:07:40.240 So kosher restaurants even started serving turkey dinners after the American custom.

00:07:44.900 That's Hanukkah. 0.76

00:07:45.800 The far less credible pretender is Kwanzaa,

00:07:48.240 which is a socialist contrivance invented by a criminal L.A. City College Africana Studies professor 0.50

00:07:53.660 named Milana Karenga in 1966.

00:07:56.560 He created Kwanzaa to be a holiday specifically for black Americans,

00:08:00.340 even though black Americans already celebrated Christmas.

00:08:03.560 Ironically, while virtually all African slaves were brought to America from the west coast of Africa,

00:08:08.840 Kwanzaa is a Swahili word meaning first fruits that originated in East Africa,

00:08:13.280 which means none of the slaves brought to America would have understood it.

00:08:16.540 Now, one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa is communism,

00:08:19.580 ujamaa, cooperative economics,

00:08:22.040 and Milana Karenga himself was sentenced to prison in 1971

00:08:26.200 for felonious assault and false imprisonment

00:08:28.700 after he sexually assaulted and tortured multiple women. 0.83

00:08:31.420 As the L.A. Times reported, he ordered them to strip naked, 0.98

00:08:34.580 whipped them with an electrical cord, and beat them with a karate baton.

00:08:38.200 Karenga then placed a hot soldering iron in one woman's mouth and against her face 1.00

00:08:42.400 and tightened her big toe in a vice. 1.00

00:08:44.520 He finally put detergent and running hoses in their mouths 0.87

00:08:46.980 and hit them on the head with toasters. 0.96

00:08:48.360 As the Black Power movement of the 1970s has waned, 0.99

00:08:52.220 so too has the celebration of the holiday.

00:08:54.540 On the high end of estimates, 0.3% of Americans acknowledge the supposed holiday.

00:08:59.960 That rate continues to decline.

00:09:02.500 So why pretend Christmastime does not center around Christmas?

00:09:05.680 Why pretend there are so many other major holidays on equal footing?

00:09:09.360 There's New Year on January 1st, and we've long said,

00:09:13.520 good tiding for Christmas and a happy new year.

00:09:16.240 There's Hanukkah, a relatively minor holiday.

00:09:18.860 But by the way, we don't say happy holidays instead of happy Labor Day,

00:09:22.740 even though Rosh Hashanah, which is a far more important Jewish holiday than Hanukkah,

00:09:26.580 sometimes occurs around the same time.

00:09:28.240 You don't say that.

00:09:29.000 We don't say happy holidays or season's greetings instead of happy Columbus Day,

00:09:33.920 even though Yom Kippur, another much more important Jewish holiday,

00:09:36.960 sometimes occurs around that time.

00:09:39.100 Well, actually, now we don't say happy Columbus Day either.

00:09:41.260 We say blessed Indigenous Peoples Day or something like that.

00:09:43.840 That's another story.

00:09:45.020 There is Kwanzaa, a virtually non-existent holiday.

00:09:47.500 What else is there?

00:09:48.080 There's Boxing Day, which no one in the United States celebrates.

00:09:51.040 There's the winter solstice, which people pretend is a thing, but nobody celebrates.

00:09:54.900 And of course, it isn't about the celebrants of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa

00:09:59.680 or the winter solstice who are waging the war on Christmas.

00:10:02.980 It's the atheist left who constantly seeks to replace clear, 0.99

00:10:06.960 vivid language with bizarre, secular euphemisms.

00:10:11.040 This is the essence of political correctness.

00:10:13.480 The essence of political correctness is to replace clear language

00:10:16.220 with euphemisms to remove the strength of that language.

00:10:19.680 So we have abortion. 0.98

00:10:20.660 Abortion isn't the killing of babies in the womb. 1.00

00:10:23.120 It's women's reproductive health. 1.00

00:10:25.860 Assisted suicide isn't killing the old and the sick.

00:10:28.940 It's euthanasia.

00:10:30.220 Euthanasia is a word that literally means good death.

00:10:33.200 The good day, you know, it's good.

00:10:34.120 It's nice.

00:10:35.040 So it's no surprise that his political correctness reached peak potency

00:10:38.280 in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

00:10:40.920 We see the war on Christmas.

00:10:42.920 Denver banned religious floats from its Christmas parade.

00:10:46.300 New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg displayed the city's holiday tree.

00:10:49.700 Major department stores like Macy's removed references to Christmas.

00:10:53.100 Public schools began removing Christian symbols from Christmastime display

00:10:56.580 all around this time.

00:10:58.520 How coincidental.

00:10:59.340 Now the left alternately denies that the war on Christmas exists

00:11:02.780 and then when they can't deny it any longer, they say it doesn't matter.

00:11:06.060 Who cares?

00:11:06.880 Who cares?

00:11:07.880 It's just language.

00:11:08.880 You're just arguing over semantics.

00:11:10.960 Sure.

00:11:11.600 But semantics means meaning.

00:11:13.640 If the language doesn't matter, then why are the war on Christmas belligerents

00:11:16.840 so insistent on changing the traditional, clear, and precise language?

00:11:21.920 If it doesn't matter, then great.

00:11:23.580 Great.

00:11:23.940 That's perfect.

00:11:25.180 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

00:11:27.640 Forget about Happy Holidays.

00:11:28.740 But of course language matters.

00:11:30.480 Of course.

00:11:31.300 Those who insist on the bizarre, vague euphemisms, they know precisely that

00:11:34.980 because politics sits downstream of culture.

00:11:38.420 You know who else knows that is President Trump.

00:11:40.160 Here he is on the campaign trail.

00:11:42.580 You know, we're getting near that beautiful Christmas season

00:11:45.460 that people don't talk about anymore.

00:11:48.340 They don't use the word Christmas because it's not politically correct.

00:11:52.680 You go department stores and they'll say Happy New Year

00:11:55.900 and they'll say other things and it'll be red.

00:11:58.520 They'll have it painted, but they don't say, well, guess what?

00:12:01.660 We're saying Merry Christmas again.

00:12:04.560 This was a great promise.

00:12:07.800 People didn't really take it seriously because they don't take these language issues seriously.

00:12:11.840 But here is President Trump as president.

00:12:14.900 The Christmas story begins 2,000 years ago with a mother, a father, their baby son,

00:12:21.720 and the most extraordinary gift of all, the gift of God's love for all of humanity.

00:12:27.780 Whatever our beliefs, we know that the birth of Jesus Christ

00:12:31.260 and the story of this incredible life forever changed the course of human history.

00:12:37.800 Each and every year at Christmastime, we recognize that the real spirit of Christmas

00:12:43.460 is not what we have.

00:12:46.720 It's about who we are.

00:12:48.660 Each one of us is a child of God.

00:12:52.740 That is the true source of joy this time of the year.

00:12:57.180 That is what makes every Christmas merry.

00:13:01.200 And now, as the President of the United States,

00:13:04.700 it's my tremendous honor to finally wish America and the world a very merry Christmas.

00:13:15.300 There's nothing like just sitting here with a little candy cane pipe and watching that.

00:13:19.260 That is pretty good.

00:13:20.920 And there's good news.

00:13:21.960 The great news in the war on Christmas is that clear language and tradition

00:13:25.720 are finally winning after a decade or a decade and a half.

00:13:28.420 According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 41% of respondents deferred to Happy Holidays over Merry Christmas.

00:13:36.220 Ten years later, a similar survey, albeit through a different research center,

00:13:40.080 found that number had dropped to just 25%.

00:13:43.120 Now, the last two years have brought a cultural exuberance to the right,

00:13:46.480 and it's given us myriad early Christmas presents.

00:13:49.240 We've got tax reform, originalist judges, responsible foreign policy,

00:13:53.360 massive deregulation, Obamacare mandate repeal.

00:13:56.300 The list goes on and on.

00:13:58.900 Now, all of this has been possible because of a cultural shift in the country

00:14:02.220 away from insidious euphemisms and political correctness,

00:14:06.380 the pinnacle of insidious euphemisms.

00:14:09.340 Now is not the time to retreat or seek the approval of the New York Times.

00:14:12.920 David McCullough observed that to write well is to think clearly,

00:14:16.180 and that's why it's so hard.

00:14:17.780 Don't give in to fashionably muddled thinking,

00:14:20.300 especially around the incarnation of the divine logic himself.

00:14:25.200 Now, back to Christmas presents.

00:14:26.320 Before we get to the mailbag, back to Christmas presents,

00:14:29.100 because I have just gotten my favorite Christmas present so far of the year.

00:14:33.520 Everett, you might have seen this.

00:14:34.420 If you watch Andrew Klavan's show, he got to unpack a man crate.

00:14:39.240 This is from Man Crates, and it was this box.

00:14:41.920 It comes in.

00:14:42.380 It's gift wrapped in duct tape, and it comes in a giant crate, and it comes with a crowbar,

00:14:48.300 and you open up your box that way, and they have these excellent gifts for men.

00:14:53.500 So I know.

00:14:54.080 It's very hard to pick out the perfect gift for everybody.

00:14:57.000 You know, it's very easy to get it wrong.

00:14:58.840 You feel bad if you don't put any thought into it.

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00:15:23.520 So the one that I got is the Whiskey Appreciation Crate, which is phenomenal.

00:15:27.740 Klavan got the same one.

00:15:28.920 It gives you a personalized whiskey decanter, personalized whiskey glasses,

00:15:32.760 a bunch of nuts and, you know, bar food, basically, great little whiskey companions.

00:15:38.640 There's the Grillmaster Crate with a brass knuckle meat tenderizer and a cast-iron smoker box.

00:15:44.820 ManCrates.com, you pick the perfect crate for you or your loved one.

00:15:49.220 I say loved one, but really you're going to look and get it for yourself.

00:15:51.880 You choose the delivery date when the crate arrives.

00:15:54.140 You get to pry it open with a laser-engraved crowbar.

00:15:57.340 Men's Health and Allure magazine, which do not agree on much,

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00:16:07.000 You can own the holidays.

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00:16:23.640 If you don't want to get too creative with these gifts

00:16:26.260 and you don't want to go for the whiskey set or the brass knuckle meat tenderizer or whatever,

00:16:29.720 you can get a gift card.

00:16:31.040 I know everyone gets gift cards.

00:16:32.180 Everyone probably wants gift cards.

00:16:33.980 It's the easiest thing to get.

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00:16:38.460 they deliver it with a sledgehammer, and it's in a block of cement.

00:16:43.300 So you have to smash your block of cement to get your present.

00:16:47.340 And that is really the essence of giving a gift.

00:16:50.700 It's not really so much about the thing itself.

00:16:52.480 It's about the experience of it, the relationship between, you know, you and the person.

00:16:56.100 And it's a really great experience.

00:16:58.580 And, yeah, I highly recommend it.

00:17:00.480 So go to ManCrates.com slash Knowles.

00:17:03.160 Okay, I'm going to put down my candy cane pipe, and we're going to get into the mailbag.

00:17:07.960 First question from David.

00:17:09.760 Hi, Michael.

00:17:10.860 First, I'd like to point out I'm a big fan of your show.

00:17:13.020 Thanks.

00:17:13.720 You had made an argument for venerating Mary.

00:17:16.340 I understand having great respect to Mary as the woman chosen by God to bear Jesus in human form.

00:17:22.260 But I'm curious as to how does praying to Mary not conflict with the first two commandments?

00:17:27.880 I myself am a Christian and base my faith on Scripture and use Scripture as the basis to evaluate practices, ideologies, etc.

00:17:34.760 Thanks, David.

00:17:35.600 A good time of year to be asking that question.

00:17:39.260 You know, I think a lot of this boils down to this question that some Protestants ask, which is,

00:17:44.440 why would you pray to anybody?

00:17:45.880 Why not just pray directly to Jesus?

00:17:48.240 Why would you pray to saints, or why would you have people on earth pray to you?

00:17:52.980 In Revelation chapter 5, here's a verse.

00:17:57.160 And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb. 0.99

00:18:02.020 Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people.

00:18:09.120 So we have the saints offering prayers to God in heaven.

00:18:12.740 They're offering prayers for what?

00:18:14.280 They're not offering prayers for themselves.

00:18:15.660 They're in heaven.

00:18:16.120 They're offering prayers for other people.

00:18:18.800 So as early as the first century of the Christian tradition, we see people asking for intercession,

00:18:25.180 praying for intercession, and we have the city of God, the saints who are in heaven,

00:18:29.920 praying for those of us who aren't there yet or who need their prayers.

00:18:34.420 We have 1 Timothy from Paul, which is pseudepigraphal, but it might tell you something.

00:18:39.800 Certainly we still read 1 Timothy.

00:18:41.160 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all men,

00:18:48.400 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.

00:18:55.360 This is good and pleasing to God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

00:19:01.440 Now Paul asks others to pray for him all the time, in Romans, in Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians.

00:19:09.120 And he prayed for others. We see that in 2 Thessalonians.

00:19:12.260 Christ himself tells us to pray for others.

00:19:14.780 He says, quote, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

00:19:18.500 Why wouldn't he tell them, I'll just have them pray to me directly.

00:19:21.120 No, he says you have to pray for others. Pray to whom? Pray to him.

00:19:24.220 Jesus regularly supplies for one person based on the faith of another person.

00:19:29.160 So in Matthew we see Christ says, oh woman, great is your faith, be it done for you as you desire, and her daughter is healed.

00:19:36.260 So it's not the daughter praying, it's someone interceding for the daughter and praying, and based on the woman's faith, the daughter is healed.

00:19:43.220 We don't hear about the daughter's faith, we only hear about the mother's faith.

00:19:46.160 Matthew, another in Matthew, Lord have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly.

00:19:51.340 In Mark, teacher, I brought my son to you, that he has a spirit that makes him mute.

00:19:55.280 In Luke, do not fear, only believe, and she, your daughter, will be well.

00:19:59.820 So one thing we also know from James is that the prayers of the righteous work especially well.

00:20:05.880 So James says the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.

00:20:10.840 We know that Mary is quite righteous.

00:20:13.020 There's the Immaculate Conception.

00:20:14.560 She was selected to be the Ark of the New Covenant, to give birth to the Incarnation, to our risen Lord.

00:20:22.340 Seems to me she would be a good person to pray for you as well.

00:20:25.700 Well, I think that's a lot of words.

00:20:28.140 I think probably you could answer that question by saying she's the mother of Jesus.

00:20:31.540 She's the mother of God.

00:20:32.940 But I hope that clears it up a little bit because very often I think people say,

00:20:37.240 well, I don't think we should do these rituals or these traditions or have this liturgy because it's not in Scripture.

00:20:42.560 But actually, it is in Scripture.

00:20:44.040 It does come from Scripture.

00:20:44.980 The liturgy comes from Scripture.

00:20:46.160 And you just have to read a little more broadly or more closely to see exactly how that fits in.

00:20:53.620 It's not always clear to people who aren't in the tradition itself.

00:20:56.740 Next question from Bridget.

00:20:58.300 Hey, Michael.

00:20:59.400 So I've made a bit of a political come around in 2016 due to all the election craziness.

00:21:03.800 I was pretty far to the left in most ways and still am on a lot of economical issues.

00:21:08.040 But I've recently become more devout in my Catholic faith and have changed my position from pro-choice to pro-life.

00:21:13.700 I'm afraid to tell my pro-choice friends and family because I'm afraid they'll ostracize me.

00:21:18.380 And I was wondering if you had any advice.

00:21:19.980 I do.

00:21:21.060 This is hard.

00:21:22.200 This is a hard thing to happen to me.

00:21:23.500 I was pro-choice back when I was – I wasn't really left-wing, but I was pro-choice.

00:21:28.800 I'm from New York.

00:21:29.800 New York Republicans are just not terribly conservative.

00:21:32.960 As I got more conservative, it was clear to me that abortion isn't good and we shouldn't have it be a legal thing.

00:21:41.300 Diana Schaub, who's a bioethicist, convinced me of this over a lunch.

00:21:44.800 And when it happened, I didn't know how to tell my friends.

00:21:48.040 The way you have to do it is two things, unapologetically and patiently.

00:21:52.320 Don't apologize.

00:21:53.260 The left sees pro-life as anti-woman.

00:21:55.960 They really earnestly believe that.

00:21:57.440 It's not just some joke.

00:21:59.000 And so you have to be unapologetic.

00:22:01.440 You have nothing to apologize for, but you also have to be patient with them.

00:22:07.920 They're not going to understand.

00:22:09.400 Be calm.

00:22:09.960 Usually the first person to get angry and start screaming in an argument is the one who doesn't understand really what you're arguing over.

00:22:16.540 So be patient.

00:22:17.400 Be calm about it.

00:22:18.800 And, you know, Louis C.K. had a good bit on this.

00:22:21.440 Louis C.K., the now disgraced comedian, but he had a good bit.

00:22:24.080 He said, you know, abortion, I don't think it's a big deal.

00:22:26.940 It's like going to the bathroom.

00:22:28.020 It's just going to the bathroom.

00:22:29.160 It's not a big deal.

00:22:30.440 Or it's killing a baby.

00:22:31.400 It's either completely meaningless like excretion or it's murdering a baby.

00:22:37.700 And I think you have to explain those premises because if you explain those premises and it's perfectly logical and compassionate from there and then you just debate the premise.

00:22:46.580 Is this baby in the womb?

00:22:49.300 Is it living?

00:22:51.460 Yes.

00:22:52.120 Is it human?

00:22:53.160 Yeah.

00:22:53.360 It's not a dog.

00:22:54.040 It's not a giraffe.

00:22:54.740 It's human.

00:22:55.480 So is it independent or is it part of the mother?

00:22:57.640 It's independent.

00:22:58.320 It has its own genome.

00:22:59.400 It will develop into its own personality.

00:23:01.980 It has a beating heart within not very many days.

00:23:04.500 It's obviously independent or separate rather.

00:23:08.200 It's obviously dependent for food on its mother. 0.95

00:23:11.100 And so if all of those things are true, then the question is are you willing to risk what is the moral equivalent of murder?

00:23:18.960 Because on the premise that it doesn't yet have human dignity when you're going to abort it, if you put it in those terms,

00:23:24.720 I think you might not bring them totally to understanding, but they'll begin to understand the premises.

00:23:30.680 Okay.

00:23:30.940 We have a lot more to talk about.

00:23:32.380 We have so much more mailbag, but I got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.

00:23:36.900 Thank you for being with me and serving in the war on Christmas.

00:23:39.540 Go forth, troops.

00:23:40.660 Go on, you know, and fight the vague, secular, language-transforming opponents on the other side. 0.96

00:23:48.020 But if you are subscribed to The Daily Wire, go over there right now, dailywire.com, and you can watch the rest of the show.

00:23:54.880 Also, if you subscribe right now, you will be ready for the conversation with none other than the boss man himself, Ben Shapiro.

00:24:02.700 That conversation is going to be next Tuesday, 5 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Pacific.

00:24:07.560 You can, if you subscribe, you can ask questions, but everybody can watch.

00:24:13.080 Only subscribers can ask questions.

00:24:14.580 If you subscribe, what do you get?

00:24:16.120 You get me, you get The Andrew Klavan Show, you get The Ben Shapiro Show, no ads on the website.

00:24:20.060 You get to talk to The Conversation.

00:24:21.240 And that's great.

00:24:22.080 Forget about all that.

00:24:23.400 It's Christmastime.

00:24:25.180 This is the most coveted object gift in the entire world.

00:24:29.380 I know you're not going to give it to your friends as a gift.

00:24:31.240 It's too desirous.

00:24:32.640 It's too wonderful.

00:24:34.000 Al Franken resigned today.

00:24:36.040 The leftist tears are going to be flowing left, right, and center.

00:24:38.540 Make sure you have this or else you're going to drown.

00:24:40.640 You can have them hot or cold, always salty and delicious.

00:24:43.480 Go to thedailywire.com right now.

00:24:44.900 We'll be right back.

00:24:56.380 Next question from Steven.

00:24:58.620 Season's greetings.

00:24:59.520 How do I answer my leftist friends who point to studies that show disparities in criminal sentencing between blacks and whites?

00:25:06.180 There do seem to be a few that show more time for similar convictions.

00:25:09.660 Thank you for your time.

00:25:11.300 This is, you shouldn't dismiss this out of hand.

00:25:13.300 This is a real issue.

00:25:14.800 There's a 2014 study that showed blacks are more likely to be jailed while awaiting trial.

00:25:19.480 What does this mean?

00:25:21.160 When you look into this, it seems that it's largely because a lot of those people can't afford to post bail.

00:25:27.700 So the wealthier people who are jailed can post bail, but these poor people can't, and that creates racial disparities.

00:25:34.260 There's also evidence that shows blacks serve longer sentences.

00:25:37.480 One of the reasons behind this is, ironically, are mandatory minimums.

00:25:42.120 So mandatory minimums have an important motive.

00:25:45.680 They have a good motive, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

00:25:48.460 It's the idea that certain crimes are so bad, they have to have a minimum sentence, and then you can play around with it from there, and it's up to the judge, and it's up to the parole board or whatever.

00:25:57.880 But the mandatory minimums seem to have created some racial inequality.

00:26:02.660 We saw this in the drug war.

00:26:04.900 Drugs like crack cocaine were punished much more harshly than drugs like regular cocaine.

00:26:09.700 I don't think there's any particularly racist reason for this.

00:26:12.160 Crack cocaine is much worse.

00:26:13.580 It's much more dangerous to individuals and communities.

00:26:16.560 Nevertheless, it creates disparities in drug sentencing.

00:26:19.680 The thing that you should begin with here when you're talking to your friend is to suggest that perhaps the cause of these disparities is not the man.

00:26:29.840 It's not institutional racism.

00:26:31.760 It's not an intentional move on the part of the government or of white people or whatever to create racial disparities and to imprison black people.

00:26:38.860 The situation is obviously more complex.

00:26:41.060 We've just talked about two examples of this.

00:26:42.760 So if the situation is more complex, then we need to look at what is causing these disparities.

00:26:48.580 Are they political?

00:26:49.800 Then perhaps we can fix them.

00:26:51.300 Are they cultural?

00:26:53.160 You can fix them, but that's much harder.

00:26:54.700 You need to know what the issues are.

00:26:56.940 They might be geographic.

00:26:58.540 And just tell them to hold their judgment for one second.

00:27:04.000 And if you don't take the easy, silly answer that it's institutional racism, I think you're more likely to arrive at a serious answer, and then you can fix the problem.

00:27:12.780 Next question from Evan.

00:27:14.480 Dear Master Knowles, is Santa Claus St. Nicholas or St. Christopher?

00:27:18.900 Because of Kris Kringle.

00:27:19.900 Merry Christmas, Evan.

00:27:21.240 No, he's not St. Christopher.

00:27:22.660 He is St. Nicholas.

00:27:24.480 Jolly old St. Nick.

00:27:25.560 I love St. Nicholas.

00:27:26.780 He was a third-century bishop from Asia Minor.

00:27:29.780 There's a legend around him that says he frequently gave secret presents to people.

00:27:34.600 That's where we get part of the Christmas story from.

00:27:37.440 But forget that.

00:27:38.400 Forget the presents.

00:27:39.620 Forget him giving man crates to people and stuff.

00:27:41.460 The best story of jolly old St. Nick is he punched a heretic at the First Council of Nicaea. 0.98

00:27:47.940 So he was at the First Council of Nicaea.

00:27:49.960 They're debating the divinity of Christ.

00:27:52.200 And St. Nicholas, jolly old St. Nicholas, got so angry by the nonsense Arius was preaching that he got up and punched him in the face.

00:27:59.480 So there are a few memes that go around every Christmas season.

00:28:01.880 One says, quote,

00:28:02.620 I came to give presents to kids and punch heretics, and I just ran out of presents. 1.00

00:28:07.040 And then the other, which is my favorite, is he sees you when you're sleeping.

00:28:10.060 He knows when you're awake.

00:28:11.100 He knows if you've denied the divinity of Christ. 0.99

00:28:13.000 So if you're an Aryan duck. 1.00

00:28:14.940 That's St. Nicholas. 0.93

00:28:15.920 Great guy worth reading about.

00:28:17.340 He also was martyred pretty brutally, viciously tortured and killed.

00:28:21.300 And we commemorate him by giving each other candies and sweaters and things.

00:28:25.680 So worth reading about the guy, a wonderful saint, and gave a Santa Claus.

00:28:30.040 Next email is from Luke.

00:28:32.500 What is the best response to atheists who say it's irrational to believe in a god because when you make an assertion, you have to prove it?

00:28:40.880 In other words, you have to prove a positive.

00:28:43.740 The burden of proof is on the believer.

00:28:45.500 This is something Christopher Hitchens and the new atheists like to say. 1.00

00:28:49.920 This isn't so.

00:28:51.020 This is not true.

00:28:52.220 First of all, one point you might bring up to these people is that every culture around the entire world for all of time has believed in a remarkably similar version of divinity and metaphysics and God.

00:29:06.160 That is a little strange.

00:29:07.620 It seems to be baked into humanity just as thirst is baked in, just as hunger is baked in.

00:29:13.560 And then the second thing I would point out is we take so many things on faith all the time.

00:29:18.860 This is evidence that a little bit of learning is a dangerous thing.

00:29:23.720 People have learned a very basic version of induction or a very basic version of the scientific method, and so they think that you can prove everything using the scientific method.

00:29:34.500 But obviously this breaks down when you get to the scientific method itself.

00:29:37.740 It breaks down at reason.

00:29:39.680 So what are some axioms?

00:29:41.180 In mathematics, there are a lot of axia, right?

00:29:43.540 There are five axia.

00:29:44.440 You have to assume that A equals A.

00:29:48.020 If A doesn't equal A, you can't perform mathematics, right?

00:29:50.720 You have to assume that if A equals B, then B equals A.

00:29:54.520 If A equals B, then B, and B equals C, then A equals C, right?

00:29:59.100 If A equals B, then A plus C equals B plus C, right?

00:30:05.140 You can't prove that.

00:30:06.340 Those are just axia.

00:30:07.440 Those are the building blocks.

00:30:08.760 Even for reason, you can't make an argument for reason.

00:30:12.940 So I can say, well, I'm going to prove that my faculties of reason are reliable.

00:30:16.700 I'm going to prove logical argument.

00:30:19.880 But you can't do it because the only way that you could do that is to make a logical argument, and it begs the question.

00:30:24.860 It assumes the conclusion in the premise of the question.

00:30:28.140 You can't prove that yesterday existed.

00:30:29.900 There are many, many things that you can't prove that you take on faith.

00:30:33.740 So what you have to parse are those aspects of theology that we can reason through.

00:30:40.660 You know, Thomas Aquinas did a pretty good job of this and many others.

00:30:43.760 And where ultimately reason butts up against what can only be bridged by revelation and faith.

00:30:49.420 And you can read plenty of logical people to bring you to that point and to describe it to you.

00:30:54.260 But this is the evidence of a little learning is a dangerous thing.

00:30:57.940 Christopher Hitchens used language very well, so people thought that he was making good points.

00:31:02.580 But he wasn't making any points.

00:31:04.080 His book, God is Not Great, doesn't even make that point.

00:31:07.560 It's a book about how terrible religion is.

00:31:09.520 But it doesn't argue what he pretends the thesis is.

00:31:14.100 It's very clear, the atheist thesis.

00:31:16.580 It's very clear.

00:31:17.140 Well, I can't see God, so he doesn't exist.

00:31:19.160 But shallows are clear, and shallow thinking is clear.

00:31:21.620 So think a little harder than that.

00:31:24.560 And maybe ask yourself, why is it that everybody throughout all of history, practically, and all of the great geniuses have believed in God?

00:31:32.320 Why is it that Isaac Newton spent the last 30 years of his life interpreting scripture?

00:31:36.440 Why is it that Blaise Pascal believed so much that he offered the great wager?

00:31:40.160 He was a devotedly Christian.

00:31:41.660 Francis Bacon, Leibniz, Gödel, all of the great scientists and mathematicians, why is it that they all believed?

00:31:48.560 Why is it that Bertrand Russell, the greatest logician of the 20th century, couldn't make an argument against the ontological argument for God's existence?

00:31:57.520 I'm seeing a lot of coincidences here.

00:31:59.680 So tell them to think a little more deeply about it and point out all of the faith that they take anyway that they don't even know about.

00:32:07.060 Next question.

00:32:08.060 Michael, this should be an easy question for me to answer, but it doesn't come to me quickly.

00:32:12.680 The founding fathers believed all men are created equal but also created the three-fifths clause.

00:32:16.900 This is a hypocritical situation.

00:32:19.220 If the founding fathers violated the very thing that this country was built on, why should we honor their documents, views, history, etc.? 0.66

00:32:25.460 Thank you.

00:32:27.000 There's nothing hypocritical about that.

00:32:28.920 There is nothing hypocritical about saying all men are created equal and then those same men, for purposes of reality, of creating this government,

00:32:38.840 compromising their philosophical purism to create a country that would get rid of that institution in fairly short time.

00:32:47.520 This is a conflict, I think, between philosophical idealism and metaphysical realism.

00:32:53.160 It's an error that the rationalists fall into.

00:32:56.200 So they think, well, I have this purity of thought.

00:32:59.040 And they kind of preen about it and they get on their moral high horse.

00:33:02.300 And then whenever men, real people in the real world, do something that doesn't live up to their philosophical purity, 0.99

00:33:09.440 they say, ah, you hypocrite. 0.99

00:33:10.980 I'm pure. 1.00

00:33:12.080 But you haven't done anything.

00:33:13.540 Of course you're not.

00:33:14.300 That doesn't make you pure.

00:33:15.440 Those men were some of the greatest men in American history at the Constitutional Convention.

00:33:20.520 And they're great because they had philosophical purity and they also dealt in reality.

00:33:25.120 It's very important.

00:33:27.400 And look, in the Constitution, they built in a provision that within a short number of years,

00:33:34.480 they would stop the importation of slaves from Africa.

00:33:37.600 This question of slavery was already built in.

00:33:39.420 And by the way, the Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise to, I suppose, in a way, help the black slaves. 0.99

00:33:46.300 But really, the question had little to do with the slaves themselves.

00:33:49.400 It had everything to do with representation between the North and the South in the Federation in the United States.

00:33:55.540 So the South wanted to count black slaves as citizens for the purpose of population numbers and representation in Congress,

00:34:04.500 but not count them as citizens when it comes to giving civil rights to citizens.

00:34:09.440 So they had no rights, but they wanted more representation. 0.94

00:34:12.420 And the Northerners said, that's ridiculous.

00:34:14.520 If you don't treat these people as human and you don't treat them as citizens, you don't get to count them as population.

00:34:19.320 And they arrived at this compromise to create the greatest, most free, most equal, most fair, most just, most prosperous nation in the history of the world

00:34:29.440 that has given countless benefits, philosophical and material, to the citizens that were excluded and were harmed and oppressed

00:34:39.100 and also to the rest of the world since then.

00:34:41.540 So I wouldn't call them hypocrites.

00:34:43.000 I'd always take a look at the man in the mirror and say, am I better than John Adams?

00:34:49.300 Am I better than Thomas Jefferson?

00:34:51.020 Have I done anything great for the world like those guys did?

00:34:54.240 And I think you'll find, no, probably not.

00:34:57.080 Next question.

00:34:57.880 Dear Cardinal Mike, I'm a Protestant and I believe that communion is an important ritual, but I don't believe in transubstantiation.

00:35:04.820 That's that the bread becomes the body and blood of Christ.

00:35:08.320 Why do Catholics think Christ was being literal when he called it his flesh and blood?

00:35:13.240 But they don't take other Christian rituals literally.

00:35:15.640 For example, they don't believe baptism causes someone to be physically born again.

00:35:20.340 What would happen if we scientifically analyzed the bread and wine at the bottom of someone's stomach?

00:35:25.620 Thanks and love the show, Justin.

00:35:27.200 This is a good question.

00:35:29.760 Why is this different?

00:35:31.140 So Jesus says you have to be born again in the baptism.

00:35:34.820 But the context is important here because he speaks in genre, just like the Bible is in genre.

00:35:39.980 It's not all literal history.

00:35:41.760 It's not all poetry.

00:35:42.480 It's not all philosophy.

00:35:43.980 So at that time when he says you have to be born again, we don't see people being born again.

00:35:49.160 We don't.

00:35:49.780 He doesn't say you have to come out through a womb again.

00:35:52.500 He doesn't.

00:35:53.460 He makes it clear that he's speaking in a more symbolic way.

00:35:57.940 When he speaks in parables, he doesn't.

00:36:00.200 We don't really believe there was a great man who had a banquet and he invited all the people and they couldn't come.

00:36:05.440 We don't really believe that.

00:36:06.860 He's speaking parabolically.

00:36:08.080 But the case of the transubstantiation is different.

00:36:11.980 And we know it's different because he tells us he's speaking differently here.

00:36:14.920 This is from John.

00:36:16.320 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying,

00:36:19.620 How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

00:36:22.360 So Jesus said to them,

00:36:23.860 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

00:36:31.280 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.

00:36:37.100 For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

00:36:41.580 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. 0.62

00:36:47.120 It goes on, when many of his disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying, who can listen to it?

00:36:54.500 So Jesus responded, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, he said, do you take offense at this?

00:37:02.440 There is so much built into this scene about how hard the saying is, that clearly Christ is not saying this is a symbol and it means whatever.

00:37:10.480 It's a saying that is very hard to understand.

00:37:13.320 It's so hard he tells us it's hard to understand.

00:37:15.260 They tell us, the people who heard it tell us it's hard to understand.

00:37:18.740 And then he goes on and says, I'm telling you guys, it's real flesh, it's real food, it's real blood.

00:37:24.560 Now, no one questioned the transubstantiation until centuries, well over a millennium later after the Protestant Revolution.

00:37:33.780 Paul in 1 Corinthians wrote, quote,

00:37:36.820 Everyone is to recollect himself before eating this bread and drinking this cup because a person who eats and drinks without recognizing the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation.

00:37:48.740 He says the blessing cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ and the bread that we break is communion with the body of Christ.

00:37:56.920 He clearly believed in the transubstantiation and the real presence in the bread and the wine.

00:38:02.700 St. John Chrysostom wrote,

00:38:04.940 We must not confine our attention to what the senses can experience, but hold fast to his words.

00:38:10.540 His word cannot deceive.

00:38:12.300 This is what Christ told us.

00:38:13.760 He said, I know you don't understand what I'm saying, but I'm telling you it's true and you're going to think it isn't true, but it is true.

00:38:19.940 Chrysostom goes on,

00:38:20.720 The other reason, there are many good arguments for the transubstantiation and not very good arguments against them, for the real presence.

00:38:36.500 Martin Luther makes great arguments for the real presence of the body and blood in the wafer.

00:38:42.180 But obviously, if you put it under a microscope, I don't know what you would find.

00:38:45.420 That isn't really the question that's being said.

00:38:47.820 This is why it's a hard saying.

00:38:49.760 But if you think about it more removed, the beauty of the transubstantiation, the beauty of the sacraments is the beauty of Christ.

00:39:01.460 It reflects the beauty of Christ.

00:39:03.000 So at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, the symbol and the symbolized, the poetry and the criticism were united.

00:39:10.240 And as civilization developed after the fall from Eden, as civilization moved on, those two became further and further away, the symbol and the symbolized, the physical and the metaphysical, and the poetry and the criticism.

00:39:26.600 As language evolves, we see that this happens.

00:39:28.860 This is what Owen Barfield wrote about in Poetic Diction.

00:39:30.940 It's what Edwin Bevan wrote about in Symbolism and Belief.

00:39:34.300 We have to understand the nature of those symbols.

00:39:37.800 Only in Christ, only in the incarnation, do we see this come full circle.

00:39:42.500 So the symbol and the symbolized, the poetry and the criticism, separate fully the metaphysical and the physical until we have the person of Christ, who is fully God and fully man, who unites those two.

00:39:52.320 And he gives us sacraments to live in that.

00:39:55.700 It's why the saying is so hard.

00:39:57.600 It's why he makes a point of doing it as his last action before he's put on the cross.

00:40:02.660 He is enshrining this heaven and earth touching one another, the metaphysics and the physics touching one another regularly for the believers.

00:40:11.080 And this is why St. Paul has such joy when he talks about it and takes it so seriously and says that if you don't recognize this, you're eating your own condemnation.

00:40:19.380 There's much more to talk about with the Eucharist, but we have to move on.

00:40:22.200 Next question, philosopher King Knowles.

00:40:24.140 The USCCB, the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, recently published a letter in which they called the new tax plan, quote, unconscionable.

00:40:31.820 As a devout Catholic, I tend to look to my bishops to inform my politics, but I'm having trouble grasping their stance this time.

00:40:37.500 How can I, as a religious person, justify my support for the tax bill, despite church leadership condemning it?

00:40:43.600 Thanks. Love the show, Zach.

00:40:44.920 So with regard to the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, I was talking to a priest friend of mine, and he told me that he enjoyed my blank book, Reasons to Vote for Democrats, very much.

00:40:55.200 And he was inspired to write his own called The Wisdom of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops.

00:40:59.800 I mean, no disrespect to the bishops, but when they weigh in on politics, sometimes they get a little wacky.

00:41:07.260 And we should obviously have great reverence for the leaders of our church, especially when they're speaking on matters of the church and of theology and of doctrine.

00:41:17.860 And when they're weighing in on politics, they don't have any special political expertise.

00:41:23.520 They aren't granted special political knowledge or smarts.

00:41:27.960 And so I would read them on other topics before I would read them on politics, and I wouldn't get too worried about it.

00:41:34.760 Next question.

00:41:36.220 I am Christian and love the holiday season.

00:41:38.760 However, some of my Christian friends say it is going against scripture to put up a Christmas tree, referring to Jeremiah 10, because it's pagan.

00:41:45.720 Now, I've tried looking into this, but it seems there are good arguments on both sides.

00:41:50.840 Can you explain further and what you think about it?

00:41:54.680 I enjoy having a Christmas tree.

00:41:56.020 However, at the same time, I don't want to do something that's unpleasing to God.

00:41:59.320 Please help.

00:42:00.160 As you might be able to intuit, especially if you watched the show yesterday, I really like Christmas trees and lights and holly and definitely mistletoe.

00:42:08.680 But I understand this argument.

00:42:11.840 This comes from Jeremiah.

00:42:12.780 There's a line that says, quote, a tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.

00:42:19.340 They decorate it with silver and gold.

00:42:21.460 They fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.

00:42:25.360 Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak.

00:42:29.020 So he seems to be describing a Christmas tree or a similar tradition.

00:42:32.500 And so we shouldn't do that, right?

00:42:33.820 He tells us not to do that.

00:42:34.640 We shouldn't do that.

00:42:35.420 The issue isn't the tree.

00:42:36.620 The issue isn't the fun little tradition at the holidays.

00:42:40.200 The issue is the idolatry.

00:42:42.100 The issue is what you invest in that tree.

00:42:45.380 So, for instance, in the Ten Commandments, God says to Moses, you shall not make a graven image.

00:42:52.520 Don't make any graven images of anything that is in heaven.

00:42:55.780 Don't make that image because it's an idol.

00:42:58.140 And then about a paragraph later, he tells Moses to create statues of angels for the Ark of the Covenant, right?

00:43:03.760 He tells him, he said, don't make any graven images, and by the way, create a work of art of a thing that's in heaven.

00:43:09.020 Why is this?

00:43:09.920 It's because of the difference between idolatry and a piece of art.

00:43:14.300 So if you bring in a Christmas tree because you're going to worship it and dance around it and ask all of the gods and demons to give you nice presents or something, don't do that.

00:43:23.760 That's probably displeasing to God.

00:43:25.540 But if it's a tradition and you aren't worshiping the tree, you aren't worshiping the graven image or the picture or the statue, it's there as a reminder, as a piece of art that inspires you to look beyond a tree or beyond a piece of art toward heaven, toward God himself.

00:43:42.680 That's a wonderful thing, and you don't need to worry about it, but I know that it can be scary and confusing when you see something that basically says, don't have a Christmas tree, and you have to figure out, well, what do they mean by this?

00:43:53.660 The essence of it is in what you're worshiping, what the culture is looking to.

00:43:59.260 From Jake.

00:44:00.440 How many five-star reviews do I have to leave for another kingdom to get to have a stogie with you and Clavin?

00:44:06.080 Are you going to bring the stogies?

00:44:08.140 Like one?

00:44:08.900 I don't know.

00:44:09.400 None?

00:44:09.840 That's fine.

00:44:10.320 Speaking of Another Kingdom, Another Kingdom is doing very well on iTunes.

00:44:14.100 We're shocked, as Hollywood is figuratively and literally burning to the ground, somehow my podcast with Andrew Clavin, Another Kingdom, has shot to the top and gotten 1,200 or 1,300 reviews.

00:44:25.480 Please, please go over there and leave a review and tell your friends and send it around.

00:44:29.940 It really helps us.

00:44:31.000 We're pitching this now to very big people in television out here.

00:44:34.980 It really helps.

00:44:35.840 It would be a great joy to look around the smoldering of Hollywood, figuratively I'm speaking, of course, and to have some conservatives get a show out of it.

00:44:45.160 So please go over there, Another Kingdom, by Andrew Clavin, performed by me.

00:44:49.200 That's our show.

00:44:49.860 That's the whole show.

00:44:51.220 Go on, troops.

00:44:52.120 March forward in the war on Christmas.

00:44:53.880 I am Michael Knowles.

00:44:54.700 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:44:55.560 I will see you on Monday.

00:45:02.880 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.

00:45:05.580 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:45:07.640 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:45:09.580 Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.

00:45:11.900 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:45:14.480 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:45:16.580 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:45:18.840 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:45:21.300 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire forward publishing production.

00:45:24.300 Copyright Forward Publishing 2017.

00:45:54.300 Best of all, Good Ranchers delivers straight to your door for added convenience.

00:45:57.800 So lock in a secure supply of American meat today.

00:46:00.400 Subscribe now at GoodRanchers.com and get free meat for life and $40 off with code DAILYWIRE.

00:46:05.240 That's $40 off and free meat for life with code DAILYWIRE.

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The Michael Knowles Show - December 07, 2017

Ep. 71 - The War On Christmas： A History

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