Christian nationalism and Christian imperialism have long been at odds with each other, but is there any way to reconcile the two? In this episode, Joel Webin and I discuss how these two can coexist, and how they can be reconciled.
00:16:51.720And if you read the Declaration of Independence, it actually does read like a propositional sort of form of nationalism.
00:16:58.400It's very creedal. Things like all men are created equal. These things are creeds, right?
00:17:02.700And so you can see how, in that sense, the sort of civic nationalist today is actually pulling those things out of the founding.
00:17:10.260And, of course, the other side of the coin is the sense in which it was kind of assumed.
00:17:15.200There was some presuppositional kind of understanding of who the people were, where they emerged from, the basis on which these ideas and shared culture and history all sort of rested.
00:17:26.040And so you see this sort of back and forth, this vying that's happening, I think, in America even today as we look back into our history to say, what was it?
00:17:35.700Was it more of the people and the place and the history and the myths?
00:17:39.600And so that on its face becomes kind of the dilemma.
00:17:43.100It becomes a matter of sort of historical interpretation and what exactly the founders think.
00:17:48.180Like I think on one of these episodes a couple weeks back, I sort of quoted George Washington's sort of farewell address.
00:17:55.040And at one point he's quoting and saying, I have a fondness for the nation and for the people.
00:18:00.200You know, the place where my father's blood was spilled, those sorts of things are coming out.
00:18:03.880And so clearly they had this connection, though it was a little bit more shallow than, for example, you would look back into Europe and see.
00:18:10.580But for me, I think like the Holy Roman Empire is actually a good example of sort of what's
00:18:15.760happening with this sort of ebbing and waning and waxing, or I should say waxing and waning
00:47:25.900America gets involved in the Philippine insurgency and then immediately leaves.
00:47:30.040And so in one sense, it wasn't this pure imperialistic frame of like, we want to acquire all of these territories and we want them to be America.
00:47:48.980And it's interesting if you just bring that today and say, okay, where is America in, for example, like desiring to purchase Greenland, is America being imperialistic or is it being nationalistic?
00:48:00.700And you can kind of see how it's both, right?
00:48:03.160In one sense, America is saying, no, actually, we love America.
00:48:06.300We're proud to be American and we want access to oil in Venezuela or oil in Greenland or all of their natural minerals.
00:48:13.540And going back to this idea of like, when imperialism breaks down, it's because a nation
00:48:19.640or group of people look at the system and say, the balance of power is not in our favor.
00:48:25.040And you can call it whatever you want.
00:49:34.860If you're imperial and you're thinking about America first, you're saying, I'm not going to offshore my manufacturing of cars, of this, of that, because ultimately what that's going to do is it's going to take American and American workers and put them out of a job.
00:49:48.280But when you have a capitalist, globalist mindset, you look at that and you say, well, actually, if I take this plant and I move it to Mexico, I can manufacture cars for 23% cheaper.
00:49:57.520Now, sure, there will be people that will be unemployed.
00:50:00.480There will be entire towns that were built around manufacturing steel or manufacturing cars or manufacturing electronics.
00:50:08.820But the bottom line would go up, and so it's worth it.
00:50:11.740And that's the critical distinction and something that has to be kept in the conversation.
00:50:15.920It's not just, well, we want to grow and we want to see parts of Greenland be ours,
00:50:19.720and we want a presence in South America, and we want to intervene here.
00:50:23.460We shouldn't be doing that on the behalf of big corporations.
00:50:26.540Smedley Butler, a great U.S. Marine back early even in the 1900s, he himself said, he said, I was basically the hired gun, the armed guard for big corporations.
00:50:37.060When big corporations get their hands in and they control parts of the economy, you think of smaller countries, there are corporations in there that are massive proportions of that country's economy.
00:50:48.140And so then they want something or they're risking tariffs or they're risking embargo.
00:50:52.420They're absolutely going to use every tool at their disposal to shift the balance in their favor.
00:50:58.320And so that's where you distinguish and say that's corporations, private corporations, looking to grab capital, looking to make the GDP go up, looking for just capital and money gains versus an imperialistic mindset says we want this because it's security.
00:51:13.940We want this like I think of Venezuela.
00:51:16.200There's a little bit of oil in there, but let's take the reason as stated.
00:51:20.280They're bringing drugs to our shores, and those drugs are killing Americans,
00:51:24.480and we've had enough, and we're cutting it off at the source.
00:51:27.000That's two vastly different ways of thinking about it.
00:51:29.500I want you because I want your stuff, and I want you to be a tax farm,
00:51:32.840and your people are so poor they'll make batteries for pennies on the dollar.
00:52:44.000They didn't trade with other countries, and the U.S. sailed ships to their shores and demanded at the point of cannon point, it wouldn't necessarily be gunpoint, demanded the point of cannon point that they open up, and it was that process of opening up Japan, which had been its own nation, not on the global stage, that was profoundly humiliating to them, and then as they struggled to compete, that's what drove them, beginning of World War II, under pressure from Russia in the north, they were like, we don't have enough to compete.0.53
00:53:10.300we need to go out. And so that's when you see Japan become an imperial power. It takes over
00:53:15.100China, commits these terrible human rights violations that we all recognize now. And0.93
00:53:19.280that's literally because we shaled ships to their shore, pointed cannons up at them and said,
00:53:24.400we want your stuff. Whoa, wait a minute. We've gone way off track. If that seems to accomplish
00:53:30.300any type of goals that benefit the American people. Right. You get this emergence of
00:53:33.420firstly nationalism and then a desire for nationalism to sort of create an imperialistic
00:53:39.460attitude overseas. And you're totally right. America set the course in the Pacific. I mean,
00:53:43.660even if you predate World War II and Pearl Harbor by 20 years, and there's already conflicts over
00:53:48.860the Philippines, and Japan's thinking the same thing America's thinking, actually, which is,
00:53:53.100this is our backyard. Japan, South China Sea, this is all of our backyard, and we need access to it.
00:53:59.060We should have our Navy there. And America's sort of fighting back and forth with this
00:54:03.100actually meaningfully smaller in terms of landmass nation, but in sort of its propositions and its
00:54:08.720cohesiveness um it was uh yeah it was very similar great all right let's do this um let's
00:54:15.720do some concluding thoughts if there's anything else historical or something like that that uh
00:54:20.640Antonio or Wes wanted to share and then we're going to go ahead and skip uh towards the end
00:54:25.340we've got a couple of super chats one of them was uh very generous and so I want to make sure that
00:54:29.380we emphasize that um Wes any concluding thoughts like I I'll just say for myself um I think that
00:54:37.080imperialism christian imperialism is not only permissible i think it's inevitable um but i
00:54:44.420think that you can have nationalism without imperialism i think you can have nationalism
00:54:49.660if it's a protected core and that's historically has not happened um so you can have nationalism
00:54:55.660without imperialism you can have nationalism perhaps this is debatable but perhaps with
00:55:00.720imperialism the one thing you can't have is imperialism at the cost of nationalism and i
00:55:05.940felt, I feel like whether it's, you know, the Roman Empire, the British Empire, or what's
00:55:10.120happening to, you know, today, or really in the last hundred years with America, if you
00:55:14.940go and try to take the world, but you erode the core stock of your own people, imperialism
00:55:22.120externally, right, we have some measure of provinces and control and authority externally
00:55:29.020and other nations out there is very different than imperialism internally, we're importing
00:55:34.280all the nations here in our own nation, in our own backyard. And I feel like that's what we've
00:55:38.600done. And that is not sustainable. So the idea that we're going to be some kind of powerful
00:55:43.820imperial force in the world. Meanwhile, we also don't have a country here at home and we've
00:55:50.040imported everybody here. And we are not doing a very good job of getting along and a lot of people1.00
00:55:55.960are not compatible. I think that that has a short shelf life and that it's not sustainable. So I
00:56:01.860I feel like the most pressing issue right now in terms of priority is nationalism for the West, recovering a national identity and that predominantly having to do with people, not just propositions, but people.
00:56:15.120And then for those nations that can achieve that and are more powerful and a positive influence in the world, then I think imperialism, it comes back as a viable option on the table.
00:56:24.980So that's my assessment. Let's end by asking you guys, do you think that both nationalism and imperialism, Christian nationalism and a Christian imperialist element, is it possible? Can you do both?0.53
00:56:39.240Well, I would just say I think Wes synthesized to a fine point how we can – the lens through which we can actually view imperialistic activities, whether it's Greenland or Venezuela, which I think boils down to interests.
00:56:54.020Like you can talk about corporate interests.
00:56:56.100Why exactly are you engaging in the behavior that you're engaging in geopolitically or with respect to your foreign policy?
00:57:02.560And I just think my analysis of America today is just pure skepticism, even if it's like purported national security, you know, the lens through or the framing that the Trump administration provides.
00:57:14.320I'm always a little bit skeptical because I know they have donors in their corner.
00:57:18.180I know they have people that are, you know, whether it's mining companies or oil companies, whatever the case is, shipping companies, that, hey, there's actually some economic benefit to Greenland capture.
00:57:30.280And that's the real – now, of course, the American people are going to buy into national security, and you've got to be able to protect the North Pole and these hypersonic missiles from China.
00:57:39.140But whatever the case is, I think America and West, you sort of frame – you labeled it as like consolidation.
00:57:45.580And I think America needs to go through this period of consolidation before we could ever emerge from this just skepticism of our foreign policy, which is to say, do we actually believe the people are represented in government?
00:57:57.640Do we actually believe that the nation's interests are America first or the Trump administration or whoever comes after that their policies are actually America first?
00:58:07.000Until we actually have an America and we can actually define what an American is, there's always going to be these interests that aren't aligned, right?
00:58:16.080And so in the body politic, voting in these liberal politicians who then have big corporate interests, and then they're just like fighting in Washington about, you know, what big donor gets what sort of a handout.
00:58:29.080And so, yeah, so my sort of analysis, I know a lot of people are like Trump maxing on Greenland.
00:58:35.500My analysis is general skepticism, again, because I don't believe that we're even truly a nation in the proper sense as of now in terms of just the things happening politically.
01:01:54.740By the time we got to 2023 and certainly 2024, by the time we got to the end of 2024, what became blatantly apparent is that at least a good half, if not more, if not even the majority, 75% of the guys who did side with being Christian nationalists, Christian nationalism for them was simply a theocratic libertarianism on the home front, domestic, for the nation.
01:02:23.040So taking imperialism aside and taking foreign involvement aside for a moment and just looking at how the country itself views itself, how it operates, what laws are in place, what traditions, what virtues, what values.
01:02:39.020A lot of the Christian nationalist guys, Christian nationalism was simply a euphemism.
01:02:43.780It was a placeholder for theocratic libertarianism.
01:02:46.340What they meant by Christian nationalism was really just free trade, loose economic policies that allow for basically unbridled capitalism to where you can make money as quick as possible.
01:03:01.960Like a lot of these guys were, yeah, we're nationalists, but economically 100% we're globalist.
01:03:08.860And with the nationalist piece, a lot of them weren't even really that concerned about immigration.
01:03:14.240They thought it should be legal. But they were like, yeah, so long as it's legal, you know, oh, these are legal citizens. Don't worry. As long as it was legal, you know, you could have a ton of them so long as it had an economic benefit in America, whether it eroded the founding stock of America or not.
01:03:31.520That was of little consequence. And so I think you're right on the money in terms of saying
01:03:36.740that last part where you said seeks to be domestically libertarian and geographically
01:03:43.820intrusive. I think that that's a lot of what we're seeing right now is strong hand, right,
01:03:51.160a firm hand when it comes to the rest of the world and America's treatment and involvement,
01:03:56.120but very very loose hand here in the country itself on the domestic front you know just you
01:04:04.960know we don't really need that many laws you don't need that many rules and basically you know as
01:04:10.560long as there's not chapter and verse you know something explicitly in the Bible that forbids it
01:04:15.560then it's free game especially if it has some kind of economic benefit and I think that I think that's
01:04:22.540And so the last part of the comment, he said Christian nationalism requires the opposite.0.79
01:04:27.100And I guess what I'm saying is I agree with you as a Christian nationalist.
01:04:31.360The unfortunate reality, though, is I would say about 50 to 75 percent of the guys who took up the moniker of Christian nationalism over the last four years, they would strongly disagree with that statement.
01:04:44.040They would say that Christian nationalism is basically political libertarianism.
01:04:50.980We say Christian nationalism actually is a strong state, right?
01:04:54.320We're kind of shedding some of the conservative tropes and cliches and stereotypes of like, well, I'm a conservative, so that just means small government.
01:05:07.480Our government should be a lot smaller in some arenas, right?0.60
01:05:11.540A lot smaller when it comes to financial handouts for Somalians, right?
01:05:18.160but the reality is that it's not that's a false dichotomy of small versus big as christian
01:05:23.980nationalists what we should care about most is not small versus big but righteous versus wicked
01:05:29.580and the reality is if we are to have a a righteous civil magistrate a godly civil magistrate what it
01:05:36.460would probably look like initially is a government shrinking almost entirely in some regards like
01:05:41.520federal aid and welfare and these kinds of things but actually getting bigger in other regards
01:05:46.160because we're so lawless and so out of hand there's so much degeneracy it would be actually
01:05:50.980a bigger state um in terms of cracking down on pornography a bigger state in terms of cracking
01:05:55.920down on usury a bigger state in terms of uh cracking down on immigration and like like we
01:06:01.040for instance um the bill that passed to fund ice that's a bigger state these are guys who are going
01:06:08.560to be employed by the state paid tax dollars it's like more money bigger budget more employees
01:06:15.500bigger state. But we would say that's Christian nationalism because we have an invasion problem0.97
01:06:21.080and we need to protect the nation. And so that's not libertarian. There's nothing libertarian about0.59
01:06:26.140it. That's actually saying, no, it's time to be meticulous and absolutely intentional and involved.
01:06:33.660So yes, I think true Christian nationalism in many cases, not all, but in many cases would be0.88
01:06:38.940the opposite of domestic libertarianism. The unfortunate reality is that we've got about0.60
01:06:44.40050 to 75% of the guys who have taken up the Christian nationalist moniker who would actually
01:06:49.800say the opposite, and that's been muddying the waters and making things very unclear.
01:06:54.800Yeah, I would just quickly say, I think also this idea of being domestically libertarian and
01:06:59.700geopolitically intrusive is actually one of the sources of our immigration problems as well as
01:07:04.420America gets involved and the West more broadly gets involved overseas, you're creating wars,
01:07:09.500you're creating conflict. These regime changes are creating a refugee problem. And then at home,0.73
01:07:16.820you're actually pretty culturally lenient. These people look to America and they say,
01:07:20.600oh, I see a better life where I can practice my religion. I can sort of eat what I want and eat
01:07:26.180what I don't want and live where I want and live within my community even in America. And so we're
01:07:31.700creating the problem, creating the sort of disturbances overseas, and then driving people0.68
01:07:36.900to the shores of Western nations. Right. Well said. Another super chat from Dapper Dan. He said,
01:07:42.060I do think that there is an inverse relationship between nations enforcing their own culture at
01:07:48.260home and enforcing that same culture abroad. The latter tends to create reliance on universal
01:07:57.220principles, he put that in quotes, everywhere. I think that that's also true. Yeah, the universalizing
01:08:03.480tendency in Western peoples is, it cannot be overstated how much damage that is done, that
01:08:09.120there can be this tendency to say, well, I'm generally, and Westerners and white people are
01:08:13.020like this, I'm generally altruistic, I'm generally welcoming, generally unassuming, generally
01:08:17.820non-judgmental. I think those are actually generally virtues in a homogenous society.
01:08:22.400We take those and then say, and I think this of the entire world and all other people, I would
01:08:26.940expect to act in this way. You universalize a particular, and that particular came about in a
01:08:33.060specific historical context of Christianity in Europe, in a homogenous society, but then you
01:08:38.760take that and you stretch it out and say, and everybody should be like this, and we'll be like
01:08:42.040this. In this context, that's nothing like the Middle Ages. Well, you just universalized a
01:08:47.280particular element, and it's actually destructive. I think that's a huge factor in getting especially
01:08:52.520white people to wake up and say, this actually is a good thing generally, but in particular,
01:08:56.940it's actually not the best that I'm the most welcoming and unassuming that I would never
01:09:01.380have any type of prejudgment about someone else that's actually a liability right the reality is
01:09:06.880is it all comes down to the final boss the final boss is the the modern expressions of liberalism
01:09:12.26020th century liberalism the heart of liberalism the engine that makes it per is egalitarianism
01:09:17.940and the west is completely vulnerable and has bought in hook line and sinker into egalitarianism
01:09:24.260when we look at the world, we just see interchangeable widgets. We think that the
01:09:28.500blank slate fallacy, that it's simply a matter of education and being informed or being trained0.99
01:09:35.340or being enlightened, or even the Christians, we buy into the same thing. We say, well, it just0.99
01:09:39.940has to do with being converted. And here's the reality. The gospel absolutely changes people.
01:09:47.220But even when it comes to the Christian conception of conversion, when a man is born again, he's
01:09:53.060still grace does not eradicate or do away with, replace nature. Grace doesn't replace nature. It
01:09:59.400elevates nature. So when a man comes to Christ, and even when that's genuine regeneration, he's
01:10:04.740still a man. When a woman comes to Christ, she's still a woman. If a Haitian comes to Christ,0.96
01:10:08.520they're still Haitian. If an American comes to Christ, they're still American. And some of these0.97
01:10:12.460things, we think that there's just this blueprint in the Bible that's universal, that's global,
01:10:18.080that just you plug and play. This will work in Haiti. And the reality is that's just not true.
01:10:22.820That's an oversimplification to say, you know, the Bible actually doesn't just get down to morality and as it pertains to legislation and laws, but it even gets into forms of government.
01:10:32.680And the Bible actually gives us an explicit one universal form of government that every single nation should adhere to because it's morally superior to all the other ones.
01:10:42.160It's a pass or fail system, black or white.
01:10:50.020I actually think that it is an ideal form of government, but I'm able to recognize that constitutional republics don't hang in midair, that a constitutional republic was built in America on the back of a thousand years of Christendom that was achieved predominantly through a very strong hand in cleaning up.
01:11:10.800i mean the streets and i'm not saying i'm not i'm being descriptive not prescriptive here but you
01:11:17.200have to remember in europe the streets under christian monarchs were running with blood the
01:11:21.380guillotine the guillotine was working overtime the degenerates of their society were being put to death
01:11:26.900on a daily basis and after a very long time of employing christian laws tough on crime policies
01:11:33.720there were people who were put into exile there were people who were put to death for this for
01:11:38.180that for the other after a thousand years of that of sweeping up the nation putting things in order
01:11:45.040and cultivating a a very very christian stock at that point and here's the thing it wasn't even
01:11:52.700all of them it's not and then europe had a constitutional republic no then the best of the
01:11:57.720best and the most of the people with the most religious convictions right the pilgrims the
01:12:03.740Puritans, the Covenanters, a subset of England, after England had been shaped and formed by a
01:12:12.440thousand years of Christian monarchy, a subset of that, the best of the best, then came to America0.51
01:12:18.820and said, you know what? I don't think we need such a firm hand with the civil magistrate and
01:12:24.500ruling over us. Men must not be governed. Oh yeah, you're right. Men didn't need to be governed1.00
01:12:29.880in the 1600s in America with the best of the best having been shaped as the descendants of
01:12:37.160a thousand years of Christa. Those men actually required less governance. But that's not where
01:12:42.540we are today. And so my point is, in all of it, is to say the idea of egalitarianism, that everyone
01:12:48.960is the same. Because if everyone's the same, then it's formulaic. All you have to do is find the
01:12:56.120right formula. And if you found it, then you plug it in anywhere, right? The formula, if this is the
01:13:01.960true holy grail formula for forms of government, for whatever, fill in the blank, then it should
01:13:07.200work. It should work in Haiti. It should work in America. It should work in Greenland. It should
01:13:10.840work in the Sudan. And what we're finding, and sadly, a lot of people still haven't put two
01:13:18.000and two together, connected the dots and discovered this. But if we're honest, what we should be
01:13:23.480finding, what we should be realizing is that's not the world that God actually made. God did not
01:13:28.160create an egalitarian world. Egalitarianism, again, being the engine of liberalism, especially
01:13:33.34020th century liberalism, the latter expressions, liberalism being the final boss. And so that
01:13:39.380ultimately has to be uprooted. We have to find a way to restore an understanding of nature, natural
01:13:45.560law, natural affections, the order of Morris, hierarchy, these kinds of things. And what
01:13:51.540you're really doing in that is you're not just advocating for for what works because egalitarianism
01:13:57.840and liberalism doesn't work so you're not just advocating for a worldview that works but what
01:14:02.560you're also doing is you are defending the world as god actually made it it's a defense of the
01:14:08.620creator and the creator's design and and so you don't just have to prove it and this is important
01:14:13.860because we don't want to just be right we want to be compelling we want to win um and and in winning
01:14:19.360you can't just prove that it's true you have to prove that it's good that the right thing is the
01:14:24.360good thing that the true thing is the the thing that's also the good the true and the beautiful
01:14:30.120it can't just be proving the true facts don't care about your feelings well you know what feelings
01:14:35.080often don't care about the facts and so you actually have to appeal right the passions and
01:14:40.540the pathos of the minister of the preacher of the christian of the apologist to actually appeal to0.90
01:14:45.720the feelings the emotions of a person and say hey here are the facts oh i see you uh you're a libtard0.85
01:14:51.260and don't care about them whatsoever okay but here are your feelings let me show you how these facts0.89
01:14:55.800they're not only true they're the true the good and the beautiful we need to find a way to compel
01:15:02.360people to see that the world god made is not an egalitarian world it is a hierarchical world
01:15:07.180and hierarchy means distinction and distinctions bring color and and difference and beauty into
01:15:14.680the world that it's a positive thing and people must realize that until that's accomplished
01:15:19.540we lose yeah and i just want to as a matter of history too on the idea of like exporting
01:15:25.480universal principles on this egalitarian basis i think american leaders have kind of realized that
01:15:31.200that doesn't work and you can look at that happen slowly slowly in the 70s and 80s but i think of
01:15:36.420china china is a good example america opens trade with china and within 25 years they're like the
01:15:41.560global power that we're now sort of fighting because there was no real basis outside of sort
01:15:47.560of economics. And the lowest common denominator, you can think about it, think about the global
01:15:51.560balance of power. And it's really like, I mean, we can reduce this a little bit and it is
01:15:55.900reductionist, but there's really only like three topics as sort of the lowest common denominator
01:16:01.060basis by which we partner with other nations. It's like, hey, do you like money? Do you want
01:16:05.000free trade? Hey, what are your stances on Israel? And there may be one or two others that are
01:16:10.220relevant but how do you feel about child labor right no there that's a good point though they're
01:16:16.000the last one i think would also be like uh and and will you be um will you fly a trans flag
01:16:21.300yeah no exactly so it's like but and that really is what it comes down to is like
01:16:25.560there's because we can't actually agree with these nations on these deeper sort of christian
01:16:30.500biblical precepts we've just basically reduced everything to four things and hey if you're good
01:16:35.300with that we'll partner with you we're happy to link arms and then it's like lo and behold we0.87
01:16:39.240build up al-qaeda and then we're fighting a war against them lo and behold we build up china and0.93
01:16:42.660now we're in a trade war with them because we have no basis to actually we have no christian0.98
01:16:46.300government we have no lens to actually look through and look through and evaluate nations
01:16:51.660who want to partner with us and say are the is this good is this to the good of their nation and
01:16:55.780to the good of our nation there's no natural basis by which that's happening and this all
01:16:59.880obviously we can spirals into corruption and politics but you see the point being this is why
01:17:05.520this experiment failed. Because this is fundamentally, as you said, Joel, not the way
01:17:09.740that God made the world. Amen. All right, big super chat, very generous, very kind from Deacon
01:17:15.120St. John. We appreciate you. Thank you. This is a longtime supporter of the show. Appreciate you
01:17:20.480very much. He said, on the topic of nationalism, which culture should we look to for an example
01:17:26.500to emulate, modern or historical? In modern times, I'm thinking about how the Amish structure their
01:17:33.580homes and economy they are clandestine uh though and say it again clandestine clandestine though
01:17:43.120and not overtly conquering yeah so this kind of gets back great question uh but it kind of gets
01:17:49.520back to what i was just saying a moment ago um i i think that unfortunately i i just i don't think
01:17:55.380it's that simple i don't think there is a universal it's not again i'm dating i don't know why i'm
01:18:00.980giving these examples and dating myself today but uh you remember the game genie back in the day
01:18:06.180this was with like nes you know the original nintendo and you could you you would put it in
01:18:11.000where the cartridges would go and and then you would put the game inside of the game genie and
01:18:15.520it would like basically you know break the code and you'd be able to you know hack the game and
01:18:21.420have you know either infinite lives or you know this that and the other you could beat any game
01:18:26.180you know that there was with the game and did you plug that into your telegram or
01:18:30.120copper wire it was like a floppy disk right yeah uh yeah i mean it basically was at that point yeah
01:18:36.620um that's that's pretty much what it was uh so anyways the game genie was like this this
01:18:41.860universal hack and i guess what i'm trying to say what i was saying earlier about egalitarianism
01:18:47.840and the whole liberal sentiment is that there's not a universal hack now there is a universal law
01:18:54.500we're not relativists we're christians after all so we believe in the transcendent we do believe
01:18:59.720that there is an absolute god and therefore absolutes absolute morals and these kinds of
01:19:04.620things but what the bible doesn't always spell out and this is where biblicism fails right this
01:19:10.300is part of what we were trying to get at in our debate uh that we recently had last week where
01:19:14.680biblicism fails in the chapter chapter and verse mentality is you know there is no chapter and
01:19:19.440verse that says thou shall not drink water out of the toilet but we don't do it because we don't
01:19:24.400actually need an explicit, you know, biblical condemnation or prohibition, we can just choose0.91
01:19:28.900not to be retarded. We can just choose to, you know, use rationale and reason and logic and0.79
01:19:33.120nature and these kinds of things and say, I don't have to be stupid. And so here's my point. There0.99
01:19:38.120are universal virtues, absolutes, laws, morality. There is such a thing as absolute morality.
01:19:45.720But the path in which that morality is attained, that's where I think that there is,
01:19:51.580there's room for prudential wisdom. Room for prudential wisdom. How a nation, so just like
01:20:01.740a father in the home, you need to have, the standard is the standard, right? The standard
01:20:07.580is the standard. You can't change the standard because it's set forward by God. And so for me,
01:20:11.400I'm a father, I have five children, and I have the same moral absolute standards for all five
01:20:17.480of my children be holy as he is holy, right? Like we're going to seek to be Christ-like,
01:20:22.680and I'm not presenting a different Jesus for each of my children. There's one Jesus, the true Jesus,
01:20:26.760and we want to be like him, and he's the standard for all five of my children. But how I hold their
01:20:32.460hand with each of these children and walk them to Jesus and walk them towards the standard
01:20:37.640and improve in that journey is different. That's where it gets tailored and customized and
01:20:44.020particular based on that child, their strengths, their weaknesses, their personality, their
01:20:49.240disposition, these kinds of things. And nations are the same. Civil magistrates, the Christian prince
01:20:54.660or Christian princes should be civil fathers. The Puritans talked about this. The reformers
01:20:59.240talked about this. The Catholic divines and patristics talked about this. It is a fatherly
01:21:03.800role. And so as a father with your citizens, civil father with citizens, so too a familial father in
01:21:09.760the home with his children. The standard is the standard. So there is a blueprint in that regard
01:21:15.020what we're trying to achieve, but the path to it is going to be customized. There is no universal
01:21:21.580path. The path for Haiti to become like Jesus in a civil realm, in the civil regard, is going to
01:21:30.340look different than the path for Pakistan, you know, the path for Canada. And that has to be0.66
01:21:37.400acknowledged. And that's because God made a world that isn't steamrolled into one, but rather has
01:21:44.060variants and distinctions, and it has to be acknowledged. And if it's not, then you are
01:21:52.820ultimately just working against the grain, and it's simply not viable.
01:21:58.940We got two Rumble Super Chats to go to, but one last piece on that is, this is where you get guys,
01:22:04.780They're always looking back to some period of history.
01:22:06.980They become 1930s Germany's guys or the southern states in the Civil War.
01:22:11.140And they pick this time period and think, well, they had the perfect solution and we've just got to do what they did.
01:22:16.360Totally ignoring all the different historical factors that made that successful, not successful, whatever it was in its context.
01:22:24.040We can't LARP as any number of nationalist movements, counter-revolutionaries.
01:26:39.540And right now what we're doing, because Patreon canceled us, we had to move and just full, you know, full blitz to get it all done as quick as possible.
01:26:47.540But it's just as good as Patreon, maybe even arguably a little bit better.
01:26:52.400It looks really nice. It's functional. It's working great.
01:26:55.460And so that's our own platform where we're not going to be canceled.
01:26:58.940And so what we did is the same offer that we were making on Patreon.
01:27:01.540all 10 parts of the Nick series are available there
01:27:04.840as well as a couple other exclusive episodes
01:27:08.040that we've done just for our club members
01:27:10.200and the only difference is that we are offering