00:21:02.880We should just enjoy our own political tradition, which, you know, I like small government,
00:21:08.100I like limited government, I like fewer regulations, but the Nordic countries like higher tax rates
00:21:14.460so that they can have free health care.
00:21:16.080And they see, in large part, they see half their taxes, half their income going as taxes as a way
00:21:22.880of contributing to their national good. And I'm not going to question them on that. Like there
00:21:27.480might be inefficiencies built into that. It's a question of policy and wisdom. But I'm okay with
00:21:33.160other people being different than we are. And instead of universalizing our political tradition,
00:21:39.220we should just be thankful that we have what we have and they can have what they want and we leave
00:21:43.740each other alone and mind each other's business. And that's been helpful for me because there is
00:21:47.760really a dynamic difference between exporting our sacred democracy versus exporting the Christian
00:21:54.680faith. Like we do actually want to see nations Christianized, but I think that we conflated it
00:22:01.680and said, you know, like for us to, you know, to extend the blessings of liberty, you know,
00:22:06.960around the world, it became a lot less of hero Christian principles that you should adopt. And
00:22:12.700became more so the specific forms of government that are unique to the American tradition and
00:22:18.420you know slapped a bible verse on them and and made it a moral issue when there might have been
00:22:24.100some more permissibility I mean this is what one reason why I didn't particularly care for some of
00:22:27.720the arguments in Doug Wilson's mere christendom book because he equated christian state like you
00:22:32.920did kind of the intro to this which was that it is small limited there's you don't have this or
00:22:38.500that. You don't have government schools, you have this and that. And I don't think that if
00:22:43.920a country that has government schools converse to Christ, all of a sudden they're going to find
00:22:50.580this moral necessity of closing down their school system. They should Christianize their school
00:22:56.640system. And we shouldn't have these kind of political burdens built into the gospel. I mean,
00:23:01.800certainly there is correction that's going to happen. There's going to be idolatry is going
00:23:05.340to be cleared and other moral errors. But in terms of like the political life and the system
00:23:10.540that they have in place, that doesn't have to be radically transformed into some ideal laissez-faire,
00:23:16.720you know, tiny government institution. So, yeah. All right. So go back to what you were saying.
00:23:23.300So you said you were going to extrapolate a little bit more and expound upon the definition
00:23:29.120of Christian nationalism. Yeah. So the first part is a totality of national action. Now that's
00:23:34.320probably the most confusing part in the whole definition but what i mean is that like in terms
00:23:39.480of nationalism uh what it is is that we that even the mundane like the the extraordinary and the
00:23:45.160ordinary come together to make a nation great so to procure for yourself your earthly and heavenly
00:23:53.140good you have to do the mundane things you have to get up brush your teeth and go to work you know
00:23:58.120you have to make your bed you got to make your bed you know a mother has to you have to you have
00:24:02.360to change diapers, these very kind of mundane things. The basic things that we do all the time
00:24:09.580is part of your national life. You loving your children, you reading to your children. These
00:24:15.100are things that we all do, at least ought to do, and that contributes to your national greatness.
00:24:21.780And it even makes it possible that your kids can do great things in the future because you had
00:24:26.780these mundane, ordinary things. So it's a totality because all these things work together.
00:24:32.360it's like i use the analogy of a soccer team only maybe one or two guys usually score the goals
00:24:38.600but without the defensive players who don't get the glory usually you can't win the soccer match
00:24:44.920and so when we say the team wins we don't say the individual who scored the goal wins we say
00:24:50.040the team wins and so it's a totality it's all the different actions that you do on the team
00:24:54.280that then leads to the team itself winning and the same thing with with the nation so you have to
00:24:59.480have from top to bottom all the things that you do in a nation um contribute to your the good of
00:25:05.480the nation that's really all i mean they're interconnected interrelated you can't have the
00:25:10.360extraordinary without the ordinary um and so yeah uh and then from there let's see the next part is uh
00:25:18.360uh consisting of civil laws so like you know laws they they are explicit they tell us what we ought
00:25:23.800to do not to do it's the civil government saying drive on this side of the road don't kill each
00:25:28.200other, you know, don't punch each other in the streets. So that's the civil law. It can also
00:25:33.060include, I think, blasphemy laws, Sunday Sabbath laws. It's the sort of thing like you can't go to
00:25:40.440church. I'm sure some people have thought of this, but sometimes I think about this because I have
00:25:44.800to drive like 40 minutes of church. But you think that it would be hard for you to focus on worship
00:25:51.320in the morning if there weren't robust laws preventing people from stealing your stuff in
00:25:57.100your house right right if like i think it's some guy in my house rummaging through this and that
00:26:02.200in my house the fact that i don't have to ordinarily think about that it that contributes
00:26:06.760to my heavenly good because now i can focus on worship on sunday right that's true for all of
00:26:11.460us even if you never thought about that you haven't thought of it because there are robust laws
00:26:15.780and i'd say social customs that prevent that sort of thing and you can make the same argument for
00:26:21.140blue laws like there would be you know a difference between mandated church attendance
00:26:25.380where the state actually forces someone to go to church versus, no, but the market will be closed
00:26:33.560on Sunday to where everyone could go to church, to where you're removing an obstruction or
00:26:38.860distraction. And there's even economic benefits with that as well. The Sabbath and the aspect
00:26:45.940of ceasing from work, and not only the aspect of the opportunity to devote yourself to a day of
00:26:50.880worship, but just the rest portion of the Sabbath and ceasing from work is kind of like in an
00:26:58.220economic sense can function as the great equalizer. When you think of mom and pop businesses and
00:27:05.680things like that and trying to compete with Leviathans like Amazon, one of the difficulties
00:27:11.280is that Amazon never sleeps. It's 24-7 constantly without, you know, once you get to a certain
00:27:19.600level, it's almost, there's a monopolizing effect of that, you know, you're king of the hill and
00:27:26.760everybody else is at an immediate disadvantage to be a competitor strictly by resources. And one of
00:27:33.800the chief of those resources being time, that, you know, like a family business cannot operate
00:27:39.64024 hours a day, seven days a week in the way that some large corporation can. And so the Sabbath,
00:27:45.040But, you know, it's, you know, chief function would be providing opportunity to worship, providing, you know, the nation's citizens with a day of rest and recalibration, but then also even economic, at least, you know, potentially in theory, there could be the potential of economic equalizing effects, you know, for small businesses and opportunity.
00:28:05.780I think, yeah, when people ask me what laws would you want, I think having blue laws, the Sunday Sabbath laws, really is the first thing that happened.
00:28:16.860It's not blasphemy laws, it's not laws against heretics, because that really defines for community what it is.
00:28:25.220That we are a Christian people because we set aside that day of worship, and it's a very public thing.
00:28:31.180You drive around and all the ordinary commerce is closed down.
00:28:34.720I mean, there's emergency and this and that that are permitted, but it really, it sets
00:28:39.000the ethos of the community, which is we're here, we're Christian people, and this is
00:28:44.180a central act of a Christian is the worship of God.
00:29:26.220you're not participating in what this community is right and so it is a draw i think also just to
00:29:32.620attend worship as well i also also the distractions of it too it's very easy for you to then
00:29:38.320now you go off i mean i i think people who go off it's very common to go out to restaurants
00:29:43.380and what you're doing is you're creating economic demand for people precisely to miss church so the
00:29:48.560cooks are not in church the waitresses waiters are not there that you're not relieving your
00:29:52.880servants, so to speak. And there's a sense in which these people, they may not be private
00:29:57.440household servants seven days a week, but public servants of sorts that you're refusing them
00:30:05.920the ability to worship. And people would say, well, their choice. Usually in most companies,
00:30:11.100you could say, hey, I attend worship on Sunday. I can't work on Sunday. And I think that's probably
00:30:15.640generally the case. But how are you loving those people who are kind of nominal Christians? This
00:30:21.040is one of my criticisms of like modern two kingdoms and others is that they tend to have
00:30:26.360this separation. It's like, oh, we have it together. We're going to church and everyone
00:30:29.380else, they're just pagans. It's true that nominal Christians are not Christians, but they also are
00:30:35.320kind of on the way. There are those, they do often assent to the propositions of faith and
00:30:43.460they just need a sort of nudge. And now they can encounter the gospel in church. But when you
00:30:49.300when you create economic incentives for them to work, you're actually preventing that from
00:30:53.860happening. Right. And not even just they need you to provide a nudge, but at minimum, they need you
00:30:58.900to not provide a hindrance. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. Anything else with the definition
00:31:05.760of Christian nationalism? So now we go to like social custom. Okay. Social custom is a very
00:31:11.120broad category of not just customs of festivals, but just broadly speaking, our way of life.
00:31:18.320So the way that we communicate our language, the way we greet each other, the way we say goodbye, the way we eat, all the various manners that we have that we don't even know that we're doing, but they actually have a lot of meaning and communicate a lot of overthinking, all sorts of things that build mutual understanding.
00:31:38.380If you go to a foreign country, even if they speak your own language, there still is that
00:44:00.520It was a very, I mean, it seems very, people do that today who are not Dutch,
00:44:04.180but that was a Dutch tradition among Protestants.
00:44:07.480And even if the father was not sincere in his faith,
00:44:10.940they still felt that duty as a christian dutchman to do that and so their kids then were
00:44:18.480instructed in in the word through that ministry of the father so there is a place for these social
00:44:25.680customs that do a lot of good um that again are not forced but it's a sense of duty built into
00:44:31.300your own culture that contributes to the flourishing of of religion here's probably my
00:44:36.860final question for this episode. And it's a big question, so we won't be able to tackle all of it,
00:44:43.220but all those things are just, it's like a fish swimming in water. It's something we do
00:44:51.640instinctively. It's inerrant to who a people are and the ways that they've been shaped by
00:44:59.700their past and their heritage. But man, once it's been lost, how do you get it back?
00:45:06.860Like, you know, like once that sense of a high trust society has been eroded and a sense of duty has been completely uprooted, and that's where, like, that's, you know, back to our first episode, where I kind of became increasingly persuaded, not in terms of that God can't produce revival bottom up, but when I think of what God has done, not just what he can do, but what he will do based off of what he has done.
00:45:35.680And then I even think just from a practical perspective of what seems to be most likely to somehow persuade and shape and train 330 million people of different persuasions and different religions at this point and different cultures and different ethnicities and different this and different that to all get it together and somehow grab 330 million people simultaneously by the shirt collar and say,
00:46:04.820get it together. Like, you know, like, aren't you a man? You know, where's your sense of duty? Like,
00:46:09.180where's your integrity? You know? And that's just, when I think of the likelihood of that
00:46:14.180happening, I'm like, oh man. And that's why this is, let me be very clear. I've said this and I
00:46:20.700always get in trouble. That's okay. I kind of like trouble. But I'm not saying as a prescription,
00:46:28.420but as a description. If I was a betting man, not saying this is what we need to do and let's
00:46:34.520make it happen behind the scenes, you know, and blah, blah, blah. Like, um, but if I was just a
00:46:38.360betting man, descriptively, what I think will happen. Um, I, I think if I think of even just
00:46:45.800forms of government and political philosophies, the idea that you can switch from one and then
00:46:51.920switch back seems unlikely, like go from a Republic devolve into democracy that then becomes
00:46:57.820an oligarchy, you know, and the blessings of Liberty now is, you know, gay pride parades and
00:47:01.720and transgenderism, and everybody does whatever the heck they want. And then we'll just go right0.59
00:47:07.320back to being a constitutional republic. I wonder if you shift from this to that,
00:47:15.740if you have to go all the way back around the circle. Because sometimes people think in this
00:47:20.780vacuum mentality that we got this constitutional republic that just dropped out of the ether
00:47:55.620You know, the idea of an American Caesar, these kinds of things, again, as a description of what may happen, not necessarily what should happen. That does seem to me as, like, how do we get the toothpaste back in the tube? How do you get a people to all of a sudden be dutiful again?
00:48:12.360and and to a high trust and and i think like in terms of practically speaking what's most likely
00:48:20.600to happen a strong hand seems to be one of the things that might well yeah i mean the thing
00:48:26.760about that happen yeah that's actually an american argument okay i i don't think people people think
00:48:33.760that we have we have a constitutional republic and that's how it always has to be um the founders
00:48:40.000at the time were doing a sort of experiment in liberty. It wasn't entirely, I think it was
00:48:46.640fairly conservative, but it was, in ways, was kind of novel. It was what they called an extended
00:48:52.220republic. It wasn't as small. It had 13 colonies of different traditions and different identities,
00:48:59.880really. People identified with their state or their colony more than they do with this broader
00:49:03.440national project. So there was this kind of experiment going on, and they said that this
00:49:08.980is only going to last if we are immoral and religious people right like we've heard that
00:49:13.460quote a thousand times but what they mean is that there's a certain there's something about the
00:49:18.340people that makes this experiment possible the government is suitable to the people and if it's
00:49:23.500no longer suitable to the people i i don't yeah i i don't see anything in the american tradition
00:49:29.700and i'm not as well versed as you by any stretch of the imagination but i don't see anything
00:49:33.420glaring off the page in the american tradition that would say that if this form of governance
00:50:05.160Yeah, it's a deeply American argument.
00:50:06.760This is where people say, oh, that's anti-American. Well, no, it's not. It's actually
00:50:12.280deeply American. Now, that's not to say that we actually need to rewrite the Constitution or have
00:50:18.580this strong man or whatever it is, but it's also false to claim that it's anti-American,
00:50:25.060to start wondering about, given our situation, given our composition, given the moral degeneracy
00:50:30.720of society is our political system appropriate right now for these people in this world right
00:50:37.200it's perfectly legitimate question and the idea of a regime devolving into other regimes is just
00:50:42.520classical politics that's what plato said it's what aristotle said it's what cicero said everyone
00:50:46.840said that you have a certain political system something about it changes or something something
00:50:53.560you know some element of it goes out of whack then it's going to devolve it's going you know
00:50:58.760you know, monarchy is going to turn into tyranny. Aristocracy turned oligarchy. Oligarchy will turn
00:51:04.320democracy or whatever. This idea of devolving. And so I think it's a totally legitimate question.
00:51:10.640I think it's one thing that we should think about. I don't think there's a lot of
00:51:15.060openness among American people to change our political system as it is now.
00:51:20.540But certainly the way that the different branches operate, they are clearly adjustable.
00:51:26.180um the executive power right now is actually very powerful yes um and a lot of people don't like
00:51:33.040that people would think that it's un-american if a president began to actually take upon himself
00:51:38.140the powers that actually constitutionally are afforded to him i've looked into this and like
00:51:42.080or mcintyre has done some good stuff on this if a president began behaving the way that uh he
00:51:48.280actually is is actually permissible to him even with our current structure as it exists on paper
00:51:52.760people would view it as like, he's an authoritarian, he's a tyrant. This is not
00:51:58.600American. He's usurped his powers. But really, the presidency has been relegated to a fairly
00:52:04.500puny, weak, impotent position. But even by our constitution, without any changes at all,
00:52:11.240as it currently stands, affords the president far more power than we've seen.
00:52:17.200Well, yeah. And the legislature has the power to create departments and then essentially give the executive department powers through that department. And that's why a lot, like the executive branch, like we talk about all these lettered agencies, they're under the executive branch for the most part.
00:52:38.520Weaponizing the FBI, you know, those kinds of things.
00:52:40.980So there, you know, yeah. And there's a lot of like, you know, there's disputes about this and I don't know enough about it to have any definitive answer. But the fact is that the there's ways that our political system can operate in which that that the legislature can remove powers from the executive. They can give powers executive. They can delegate these these authorities. So there is actually a leeway, I'd say, constitutionally for for these things. But it's just a mess right now. Legislature is pathetic.
00:53:09.320um but uh and there is the fourth branch of government with the administrative state the the0.89
00:53:14.500the department agencies which operate outside of anyone's jurisdiction i mean it should be the
00:53:20.200executive's decision to fire civil servants right right that that should be in principle that if he
00:53:26.520is in charge of them he should be able to manage them pretty directly yep especially in a time when
00:53:32.500when the legislature is so weak and uh and unable to pass legislation and essentially cannot govern
00:53:39.300um it would make sense to have a strong executive yeah but uh but anyway among conservatives i i
00:53:45.800don't know the the full answer on that but i just think there are ways in which the broader picture
00:53:50.180going back to what i originally said would you would you concur that um in terms of the toothpaste
00:53:56.580going back in in the tube not as a prescription this is what we should do and let's make it happen
00:54:00.880but in terms of a descriptive likelihood does do you agree that um it seems as though for us to get
00:54:08.540back to a high trust society and a sense of duty and these kinds of things and self-governance
00:54:14.360that because we've devolved to such a degree of degeneracy, that we're probably not going to
00:54:22.600voluntarily do it on our own. All 330 million people, that there's probably going to have to
00:54:26.880be some kind of, seemingly, whether it objectively is or not, some kind of catastrophic political
00:54:33.560event that actually would be a providential mercy of God, but might be an omelet that cracks a few
00:54:41.660eggs in the process, something along those lines? Yeah. I mean, you've got the theory is that
00:54:47.840nothing really ever happens, right? That's the theory. This is one of those questions that I
00:54:55.260wrote the book two years ago, and then I got to the end, and I said, well, people are going to
00:55:00.220want to know what do we do now right and i was at a loss i admit i was at a loss for words i didn't
00:55:05.280know exactly what to do and two years later i'm still it still is that lingering question
00:55:10.420of what do we do now it does seem that the path that we're on in order to kind of derail the path
00:55:18.040we're on we would need at the very least um the return of great men right um and i think in a way
00:55:24.340trump trump is like the most i call him the most ironic great man of history because he's kind of
00:55:29.640goofy and um but i i hope that trump kind of paves the way for people to be more receptive of great
00:55:36.360men and by great men you mean larger than life sort of people not barack obama was um kind of a
00:55:43.980great man to a bunch of managerial liberals but i mean this type of great man that can kind of
00:55:48.560transcend that um and and still work within the constitutional framework i mean trump has this
00:55:54.080this persona this gravitas he has a little dance that everyone imitate now like that that sort of
00:55:59.020thing where he can he can unite a people with by the force of personality right um and i think
00:56:05.540that's the way to prevent the sort of you know calamity that you that you that might happen
00:56:10.240right um so this is like that's why in the great prince chapter it was like we need a guy who's
00:56:15.740like this world shatterer um with gravitas personality virtue and piety and i think that's
00:56:23.320our our way back and we so we have to get away from and i i think this like even in our own
00:56:28.500tradition we have we have great men you know love them or hate them abraham lincoln was a sort of
00:56:33.380great man by definition george washington certainly was a great man right you have others as well he
00:56:38.640could have been king you know yeah yeah yeah you could have and you need someone like that like
00:56:42.780you need you need a guy like trump it'd be it'd be great if trump had some of the character of
00:56:47.420george washington although i don't want to disparage him i mean courage to stand up and
00:56:51.040say fight fight fight after being shot is a form of character and virtue yeah but you know but i
00:56:55.480I think you would agree that, you know, George Washington was probably a more virtuous man than
00:56:59.420Donald Trump. But the point is like, we need a guy like, like Trump, like Washington, um,
00:57:05.680who, who could come in and be offered a third term, be offered to be made King and yet, you
00:57:11.980know, refuse, uh, but, but who has that kind of level of gravitas and charisma with the people
00:57:17.620that like, that the people would be willing to, if you, if you would have it willing to step
00:57:23.360outside of the system because the strong man has come. And if he tells us to make change,
00:57:30.380we'll do it. We need that kind of unifying, inspiring kind of character. And I understand
00:57:37.640how in some ways that feels un-American and in a lot of ways, for Protestants and evangelicals,
00:57:44.240it feels un-Christian. It's like, no, that's not how God builds the kingdom. He builds it one soul
00:57:48.980at a time. And it's, it's individual person. It feels, I think it's hardest for the Baptist
00:57:54.520because the Baptist, it's always been what, like, what is the Baptist thing? It's personal
00:57:59.700evangelism, one, one soul at a time, you know, and that's how we change the world, personal
00:58:04.540evangelism. But so many of the Baptist, you know, evangelistic efforts and world missions and all
00:58:10.260these things. And David Platt, you know, is like, has proven to just be a giant colossal failure
00:58:14.920in many ways. And I don't think, and I'm not saying one or the other, that one replaces the
00:58:20.760other, like nothing less. I'm a pastor, so I'm not arguing anything less than expositional preaching
00:58:25.780on the Lord's Day and personal evangelism, you know, throughout the week as individual Christians
00:58:29.640and catechizing our kids. But I think it's also going to require, I think you're right, it's going
00:58:34.260to require great men. And you look at the Bible, it was always great men. God would, you know,
00:58:38.460there'd be revival in Israel, but not without, not without, you know, your Josiahs and your Davids
00:58:48.340and, you know, there were always, your Gideons, you know, like mighty man of valor. There were
00:58:52.240always, God has always worked through, God is not nearly as opposed to hierarchy and great men,
00:58:59.860the Superman. We take offense at great men far more than God does. God seems to be
00:59:08.420okay with it. Yeah. Well, I think that the opposition to great men is actually a sort of
00:59:14.060feminization. Because I think men, men are, they'll contend in the hierarchy. They'll fight to be the
00:59:23.920top. Right. But just as much men are willing to follow great men. That's right. They are willing
00:59:31.840to be a great army officer, a great captain of an infantry company, they will follow the
00:59:41.240great captain or the great first sergeant.
00:59:43.540Even when they're just a rifleman or they're automatic weapon specials or whatever they
00:59:49.860are, they're willing to follow those people in a battle without resentment.
00:59:54.720And men will contend, but also be willing to concede.
00:59:57.740Yeah, they'll fight within the hierarchy, but they're willing to obey the command of someone they respect. And in a more masculine society, that hierarchy formation can occur, greatness can be accepted.
01:00:14.760and you want to be, you might, you know, eventually, you eventually accept that I'm
01:00:18.320not going to be a George Washington or whatever, but you're perfectly willing to follow his
01:01:08.220And a lot of our laws reflect that fact.
01:01:10.540Uh, but if, if you, if you take a, uh, even a small business that's run by men, the, the guys who are not at the, not the, the, the, the image of the company still want to be in that company because it's this, it's this environment where you support one another in your various wins.
01:01:28.580even if the you have a collective win even if that one guy gets the you know like the face of
01:01:34.860the win for the company right you still want to be a part of that yeah um even if you're small so
01:01:41.180i think you're right that's uh so i guess the patriarchy movement is part of it but i mean
01:01:45.440it is they all tie together it's not a coincidence that like it correlates in a very real way like
01:01:50.400christian nationalism it makes sense that that guys who have like myself who have adopted the
01:01:56.620moniker Christian nationalism also tend to be patriarchal. Yeah. You know, like, I don't see
01:02:04.080any, I don't see anybody, I'm a Christian nationalist and I'm also a feminist. Yeah,
01:02:09.180it doesn't make, yeah, that doesn't make any sense. But yeah, but I think that we each have
01:02:15.740to identify our role. I think this is kind of abstract, but we each have to find our station
01:02:23.120in life and try to contribute in ways that we, we can with this. So I'm, I'm the political theory
01:02:29.560guy. I read the old books and stuff. Um, you know, you're the, you're the, you're the, um,
01:02:34.420the, the video guy, I guess, the popularizer lightning rod, whatever, whatever. And then
01:02:40.100you guys that you have the guy who guys who are doing the businesses who can hire the guy, um,
01:02:44.340who hire people who are kicked out of the H because the HR department, like there's all
01:02:47.940these different things. You can have these other guys who are keeping their heads down and going
01:02:52.000through the process and then they are able to then take over the fbi or take over this and that
01:02:56.320when the opportunity arises right um so each of us has to find like i know there's people who are
01:03:01.640like in seminary who are on our side right who are not public about it because they are there
01:03:07.260they want to raise up they want you are not guilting them and saying like all the time i
01:03:11.260get guys who are in seminary or guys who are like um they're ministers in the pca you know
01:03:17.120I get messages from like all the NAPARC guys saying, yeah, we're on your side.