The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - No, Diversity Is Not Our Strength with Stephen Wolfe - ICYMI

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:00:02.260 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin

00:00:03.660 with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:05.240 And in this episode, I was privileged to welcome

00:00:07.140 to the show's Dr. Stephen Wolfe.

00:00:09.300 He is the author of The Case for Christian Nationalism.

00:00:12.600 And we're talking about multiculturalism 1.00

00:00:15.840 and that it is bad. 1.00

00:00:18.940 Diversity in terms of culture is not our strength.

00:00:23.740 And so we're talking about multiculturalism, 0.61

00:00:25.720 particularly here in America, 1.00

00:00:27.360 the negative effects that we have suffered as a nation because of it, especially over the last

00:00:32.820 60 years, and what to do about it, and then answering some of the big questions of, okay,

00:00:38.700 well, if we're going to have a monoculture, then doesn't that mean that you are racist? And the

00:00:43.600 answer is no. And we'll flesh that out and show you how we can have unity. Diversity is not our

00:00:49.940 strength. Unity is our strength. And yet how we can be welcoming and hospitable to different

00:00:55.180 ethnicities and all these things that we find in scripture. That's the episode. And Dr. Stephen

00:01:00.760 Wolfe, you've probably heard all the scary, you know, he's the boogeyman hiding under your bed.

00:01:07.080 Try to lower your shields for a moment. Use discernment. You may disagree, but give him a

00:01:12.260 chance. He's got some really good things to say, and I'd like you to hear it for yourself. So tune

00:01:16.660 in now. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:01:25.180 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel

00:01:31.580 Webin with Right Response Ministries, and in this episode, I'm privileged to welcome to the show

00:01:35.820 Stephen Wolfe, Dr. Stephen Wolfe. He's not a pastor. Praise God, we need pastors, but we don't

00:01:42.220 need everyone to be a pastor, so he's doing what God's called him to do. He is also the author,

00:01:47.600 you probably recognize his name, he's the author of The Case for Christian Nationalism, and Stephen

00:01:52.580 and I just recently were able to have the privilege of speaking at the new Christendom

00:01:57.080 conference with the Ogden boys. That's Brian Sauve and Eric Kahn, Dan Burkholder, and Ben Garrett.

00:02:03.580 That was a blessing. And one of the talks at the conference that Stephen presented for us was on

00:02:09.160 multiculturalism, arguing that, well, that diversity is not our strength, but the type of diversity in

00:02:16.100 view might surprise you. And I think it's worth fleshing out. So Stephen, can you give us maybe

00:02:20.820 you a recap of that talk that you presented. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, thanks for having me on.

00:02:29.060 Yeah, so what I was trying to address was several things. One was whether or not multiculturalism

00:02:35.740 is actually a good thing, not only theoretically, but actually in effect. So like in the world, 0.90

00:02:42.240 is there any indicator through social science and research that multiculturalism is actually good 0.73

00:02:47.980 for society um and in every society it's actually bad uh this it's one of the funny things that

00:02:54.180 actually liberals uh liberal and leftist researchers who have really tried to prove

00:02:59.740 that multiculturalism is good um have actually demonstrated and been honest about it that it's

00:03:05.660 actually bad there's been there's been actually researchers who've done research on social trust

00:03:09.880 around the country around the world and they sat on the on the research because they they got the

00:03:15.320 data they're expecting to show this great you know result of multiculturalism is great and

00:03:20.160 britches and it's it's magical and all that um but then in the end it actually shows that it's 0.85

00:03:25.960 not good and so they sit on it for like five six years until they just found well we got to get it

00:03:31.460 out there so they publish it and it shows that essentially um a diverse ethically and culturally

00:03:40.440 diverse countries actually have very low social trust, even down to the local level. And there's

00:03:47.680 all sorts of research on this. I mean, even in like businesses, it's basically people admit

00:03:52.320 deep down in the academic journals that diversity in the workplace actually doesn't add any benefit

00:03:58.440 despite the propaganda in that area from businesses to the military. It's just not

00:04:05.540 shown to actually increase effectiveness so i i wanted i talked about that i mentioned i i uh

00:04:12.020 discussed some of the research on that which is pretty conclusive um and then i also uh talk about

00:04:18.760 the united states so we tend to think that the united states from its very beginning was intended

00:04:23.560 to be a sort of multi-ethnic um state or multi-ethnic uh people meaning basically meaning

00:04:31.940 that there is no ethnicity or cultural group that is more american than anyone else that's the idea

00:04:39.400 that we've all been taught for our entire lives most people actually i'd say everyone's lives at

00:04:45.280 this point uh and um that that's that's kind of our ideology but one of the things i wanted to

00:04:51.300 show is that actually from the beginning that was not the case um and that uh the founders

00:04:56.920 were self-consciously they understood themselves to be british or at least stem from the british

00:05:04.080 and even this sort of american self-consciousness there was early on both in the founding i'd say

00:05:10.900 in the early american republic a sense of um a peoplehood that was around a ethnic core that

00:05:18.780 that you can call uniquely american some people have called it like a sort of britishness on

00:05:24.320 steroids or like a uh so there is something kind of distinct but also rooted ancestrally in a

00:05:29.700 british a british um uh ethnos and so that was the core and so they they considered that particularity

00:05:37.960 uh to be um necessary to uphold the universal so when we think of the american like political uh

00:05:47.380 political thought we think of these very universal ideas of all men are created equal

00:05:52.360 you know they have natural rights so these things are universal if natural rights are natural that

00:05:57.800 means that each human being has these rights and so we've taken that recently in the last i'd say

00:06:04.460 50 years to say essentially that's all it means to american is to affirm the propositions but the

00:06:09.800 founders and i would say well in the 19th century even in the early 20th century even past world

00:06:15.100 war too i'd say the predominant thinking was that the there's a cultural particularity a people

00:06:22.440 that undergird those the affirming those propositions so to believe in natural rights

00:06:28.660 to believe in sort of american liberty to believe in religious liberty as the uh kind of anglo

00:06:33.180 tradition affirms it um to believe in equality the those sorts of ideas uh stem and are supported by

00:06:43.020 a cultural uh particularity that people have identified as anglo-protestant so it's both

00:06:49.500 rooted in english and uh but also it's a it's the product of a protestant tradition

00:06:55.400 that i'm sure we can get to but that's what i was trying to get at is actually okay multiculturalism

00:07:00.880 is bad and oh by the way we as americans are not committed to multiculturalism in principle we are

00:07:07.900 actually committed to the idea that we have a people uh and we have a place and we have ideas

00:07:15.000 that are associated with those people and um we cannot expect everyone around the world who are

00:07:21.780 not part of that uh political um that that's that essentially western civilization but um but even

00:07:29.620 kind of people who are not western european to affirm those ideas at least not readily so they

00:07:36.820 they can't just show up to america and all of a sudden they affirm the propositions and then

00:07:41.580 they're they're exactly one of us as historically understood so we're not actually historically

00:07:46.220 committed to that as good americans um and i i mean yeah and so that that's kind of the over the

00:07:53.200 that's what i'm saying is that we actually should as americans say there is a core ethnicity or

00:07:58.940 there is a core culture that is an open culture meaning that people can assimilate into it so

00:08:05.560 it's not bound by perfect genetic markers as if you're the this sort of you know if you're too

00:08:10.880 if you're too german you're out that's not that's not the um the principle nevertheless it is uh

00:08:17.380 there is a core way of life um a core heritage to which newcomers should conform and that is

00:08:27.700 necessary to maintain our old american principles so all those principles that the old people the

00:08:33.880 elder folks love that they heard from reagan um and and uh all those core conservative principles

00:08:40.540 we talk about of liberty and freedom and justice for all and all that those are actually undergirded

00:08:45.220 by an old american conception of people um that is not as universal as we are taught and that it's

00:08:52.660 actually that teaching is very new right the the post-war sentiment is uh what you and others have

00:08:58.660 refer to it as um so basically your talk in a nutshell was uh multiculturalism is not our

00:09:05.440 strength uh that america from its founding uh that was not the intent um but it was meant to

00:09:12.380 be a monoculture and then you went on to say okay so which one is it which culture and you describe

00:09:18.540 that as anglo-protestant so could you take just a moment and maybe taking those two words and

00:09:24.160 breaking each of them down what do you mean by protestant and what do you mean by anglo do

00:09:29.300 catholics have a place and do people who aren't white have a place what does it mean anglo

00:09:34.640 protestant culture yeah so it has a it's it's rooted in a british uh intellectual uh political

00:09:43.780 tradition so uh this is explicitly affirmed by the founders so if you look at the continental

00:09:49.480 congress in 1774 uh 75 76 you'll you'll see them regularly appeal to their britishness and they are

00:09:57.560 actually asserting their rights as englishmen so they they're they're self-consciously knew they

00:10:03.200 were part of a tradition extending to the magna carta all the way back to the the saxon kings

00:10:08.300 of the ninth century and eighth century um so there was a self-conscious britishness to the

00:10:15.000 founders uh and it's from a legal tradition or not just well not just legal but also a political

00:10:21.880 tradition that you can see reflected uh everything from uh from from fortescue fortescue on law

00:10:29.700 getting back to the magna carta which is regular appeal regularly appealed to by people like samuel

00:10:33.660 adams um you can see this through uh some expressions through john locke and also religious

00:10:39.220 liberty as well so uh and this this ties to the protestantism uh the reason why we as protestants

00:10:47.580 can affirm religious liberty is not this sort of okay i guess we'll tolerate you guys you baptists

00:10:53.180 we're we're congregationalists and presbyterians i guess we can tolerate you guys even though we

00:10:58.520 think you're heathen um that was actually not the the protestant tradition but within the anglo world

00:11:04.440 there was a steady uh recognition that we as fellow protestants can get along without wanting

00:11:13.140 to uh suppress each other and this is even you can see this even in new england in the 17th century

00:11:19.180 where they did actually say baptists look you can be part of our churches you can be in our churches

00:11:24.380 um our congregationalist church you just can't have your own so you see this in 30 in the 1630s

00:11:29.300 40s 50s 60s uh but baptists of course one of their own churches uh but so eventually you see 0.94

00:11:35.840 this in the 17 teens that cotton mather is now ordaining a baptist uh in there in a baptist

00:11:42.280 church so there is a development where they see okay look we've always affirmed that that that

00:11:50.380 a baptist can have the same faith as us in themselves they can be true christians and

00:11:55.500 that's why we let him in our churches but now we've realized hey we can actually form a civil

00:12:01.180 polity a civil society where we tolerate one another and we affirm each other's mutual

00:12:06.860 protestantism and each other's mutual faith that we disagree on things and that's all again i mean

00:12:11.640 this is new england was a few decades later where england recognized this earlier in the 1600s

00:12:18.900 but this is all just like our angle protestant tradition and so when you get to the founding

00:12:23.560 and we talk about religious liberty that this is not like the enlightenment showing up that's not

00:12:28.920 like all of a sudden they read john locke and like oh my dogmatic slumber i finally woke out of that

00:12:34.080 no it was a progress into it and the first amendment actually is an expression of a long

00:12:40.740 anglo-protestant tradition of experience or it was the experience with each other that then developed

00:12:46.820 into the first amendment saying we can form a civil union despite theological differences and

00:12:52.740 that's what is expressed in the first amendment um and that so that's the angle protestant

00:12:56.780 tradition is rooted in protestantism which says so like roman catholicism you have a ecclesiastical

00:13:03.100 earthly head of the church namely the pope and to be in to be in you have to be aligned

00:13:08.760 institutionally right that's not true in protestantism this is this is why you could

00:13:14.120 you could have the calvinist at least appealing to the lutherans and saying lutherans we think

00:13:18.720 your brothers and lutherans just like scoff at us but but you know but the same thing with like

00:13:23.300 presbyterians and baptists and congregationalists and baptists and anglicans anglicans and

00:13:28.600 presbyterians we could all affirm each other's mutual faith because we do not believe that you

00:13:33.900 have to be aligned with an institution uh a a singular institution um to be in um and so for

00:13:42.100 that reason you can have principled religious liberty that as i said affirms each other's

00:13:47.680 mutual faith and that was developed within the anglo's the anglo world right which comes to

00:13:52.420 expression and comes to i think uh it's its ultimate expression is 19th century in america

00:13:59.980 where eventually you have disestablishment like i think the the last the last uh quasi

00:14:05.600 establishment is goes disestablished in the 1830s in one of the states but then you still have

00:14:10.780 flourishing and high religiosity um and this is what toqueville shows up the united states and

00:14:16.560 looks around and says wow you guys don't have establishment and you have all this high

00:14:19.680 religiosity everyone cares intensely about religion and people are attending church and

00:14:23.940 and uh anyone who's an atheist has to remain silent about it because it would have it would

00:14:29.660 there's a high social cost uh and they get and so it's it it so it came to this expression with

00:14:36.020 the 19th century that we've lost of course but uh anyway i mean there's a lot to say about

00:14:40.100 angled Protestantism with the work ethic and a sense of ordered liberty that comes without

00:14:47.400 a heavy-handed order. Again, that's one of the unique things about the American tradition is we

00:14:53.020 can have high liberty with also high order without a kind of magistrate constantly threatening to

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00:16:36.740 our founding and you know the american project um but sadly our population has slipped i have

00:16:42.300 two questions so one well on that if i can comment on that yeah go ahead i think that's really

00:16:46.800 important to point out so again we have this it's overly universalistic conception of of our our way

00:16:53.620 of life uh and so whenever whenever when someone like mentions like protestant franco or they

00:16:59.860 mentioned right uh the old the old the old you know classical conception of a dictator all that

00:17:05.120 people freak out um but they don't realize that again our american principles were designed for

00:17:12.760 people who could self who could govern themselves um who could have ordered liberty without a heavy

00:17:19.300 handed with heavy-handed law we don't have those people and anymore and and we don't yeah and we

00:17:24.900 no longer have that uh and it's it is undergirded by an angle protestant culture and so a lot of

00:17:31.720 people on the right are saying well look you'll get our look at the the country now and it's it's

00:17:37.540 foolish to try to continue these like these this idea of ordered liberty with self-government if

00:17:43.220 you don't have the people for that right like we would all love to go back to times where we could 0.99

00:17:48.120 have ordered liberty but we can't we can't have that anymore because it's that was undergirded

00:17:53.580 by a particular core people right um and once those people are gone once that particularity

00:17:59.880 and that culture is gone then well guess what you now men must be governed meaning that like now you

00:18:05.300 need the heavy hand of law and this is like this like burke has a great line which i wish i could

00:18:09.960 quote right now but it's essentially that people people who can't self-govern are have to be

00:18:15.740 controlled by a heavy hand of government you talk about the french revolution which back then a lot

00:18:21.080 of people thought that the french could not actually govern that they didn't they uh a lot

00:18:26.300 even french themselves recognized that they didn't have a tradition of liberty like the anglos did

00:18:31.840 and so you get the french revolution people are predicting that it's just going to be a disaster

00:18:36.360 which is exactly what happened because they didn't have they had a tradition of of uh royal

00:18:41.080 absolutism right whereas the this is what monescue is praising in the mid 18 1700s he's saying look

00:18:48.260 i'm french but the model is england um and then you get to the late 1780s and you have the french

00:18:54.820 revolution and you have like i said my talk like gouverneur morris who was a founding father is

00:18:59.640 saying look like these people these frenchmen don't know liberty it's going to take time right

00:19:04.000 um so again the point is like you can have a you can list the universal abstract rights all day

00:19:09.340 long and people could say yay cheer on them on but if you don't have if you're not part of a

00:19:13.900 a people whose whose experience and tradition and culture can can govern themselves can actually

00:19:22.600 bring about order to liberty then it's not going to work and that's that's the state we're in now

00:19:26.180 right yeah systems i'm i'm with you systems of government i think have to fit the people

00:19:31.820 and so you know this we've talked a little bit like i i am happy and unashamed to wear the

00:19:37.700 moniker of a general equity theonomist uh meaning that i don't have you know i would remain

00:19:43.420 reserve some distinctions from um some of the og reconstructionist although i appreciate rush

00:19:49.340 Duny and a lot of what he said in Bonson, but I would be distinct from them and I would kind of

00:19:53.640 give that disclaimer of general equity, lowercase t, theonomist. But what I'm saying is that

00:19:59.660 sometimes the OG, you know, hardcore capital T, theonomist, reconstructionist, not only do they

00:20:05.820 say, well, you know, the general equity of the civil codes given to Israel, these things need to

00:20:10.620 be, you know, they need to be legislated in governments and in all places and all times,

00:20:16.760 but sometimes they'll go even further than that and say that the Bible actually prescribes

00:20:20.800 not just laws, but a particular form of government. And I would reserve that. I do think there are

00:20:27.500 some basic principles in terms of not just laws, but forms of government, representative government.

00:20:32.620 I think of Deuteronomy 18, you know, and there's, you know, guys over, you know, Jethro, the father

00:20:37.380 in law of Moses over tens and fifties and hundreds and thousands. One thing that I will point out

00:20:43.460 with that is a lot of guys will say, you know, we shouldn't vote for Trump because he doesn't,

00:20:48.140 you know, it's a low bar. We're not saying he has to be a perfect Christian or a Calvinist or this,

00:20:52.020 that, and the other, but he's got to meet at least this, you know, this gracious standard

00:20:55.660 that God put forth through Jethro, you know, to Moses and Deuteronomy 18. But I would, I would say,

00:21:00.640 which is you, you, you love justice. You don't take a bribe, those kinds of things. You could

00:21:04.900 not even be regenerate and still meet the standard. And so that should be the standard for our

00:21:08.520 elected, elected officials, you know, and the president would be one of those. And I would

00:21:12.880 push back on that and just say, number one, that's the standard given to Moses to appoint

00:21:17.260 these men. That's different than in our two-party system. Once we've gone through the primaries and

00:21:23.160 all these things, and we have two candidates before us, politics is the realm of the possible.

00:21:27.820 There's two candidates that can actually win, and neither of them meet this Deuteronomy 18 standard,

00:21:35.860 and it's not Moses. It's not a prophet, monarch-type figure from on high who gets to pick

00:21:42.700 down. It's all the people at the bottom picking up, choosing up, and one of them will be chosen.

00:21:50.620 It's not going to be, hey, well, I guess we just don't have a president this year because nobody

00:21:53.760 meets the standard. No, you're going to have one, and so that's why I think the lesser of two evils

00:21:58.340 comes into play in Deuteronomy 18, which I think is a great ideal standard. I think it's very

00:22:04.240 different in that being a standard for Moses as a monarch type figure to choose and select down

00:22:10.820 than for us, you know, in a representative democracy type thing, the people to choose

00:22:16.340 up. So all that being said, my point is, yes, there are some principles you can glean, I think,

00:22:21.280 from the scripture in the Old Testament, some major principles of, you know, forms, not just

00:22:26.640 laws, but forms of government like representative government. That said, I like republics. I think

00:22:33.860 republics are ideal. Um, but as Benjamin Franklin allegedly said, you know, what, you know, what

00:22:38.760 did you give us a republic? If there's a condition you can keep it. And I think the, you know, the

00:22:44.000 jury has come back in the verdict is here. Uh, we did not keep it. And, um, and I don't think that

00:22:49.380 we currently have, and this is unfortunate. I'm not happy about it, but I don't think we currently

00:22:53.920 have, uh, the quality of people required in order to sustain a republic. So, so this whole, you

00:23:01.160 Protestant Franco or monarchy or whatever. None of these things, I don't know anybody on the right

00:23:07.860 or dissident right or whatever you want to call it, New Christodom, whatever. I don't know anybody

00:23:12.180 who's giddy about it and saying, yes, this is what we've always wanted. We never wanted a republic.

00:23:17.280 We've always wanted a king. I don't hear that. I hear people saying, you know what, it's just time

00:23:23.820 not to make something happen. It's time to simply recognize what already has happened. We need to

00:23:29.540 know where we currently are and not just deal. We can't afford to have this, you know, five-year-old

00:23:36.160 idealism. We need to put our big boy pants on, grow up, be an adult, recognize the times,

00:23:41.340 where we currently are and what our people are currently suited for so that we can get back

00:23:48.100 to the ideal. So I think a representative constitutional republic is still the ideal.

00:23:53.640 I'd love to see us have it, but we don't have it now. We have it in pretense, but not in practice.

00:23:58.980 and i don't think that we're qualified for what do you think yeah i don't think that's a crazy

00:24:04.900 thing right wing watch will pick me up saying these kinds of things you know and like oh my

00:24:09.280 goodness this right wing extremist and i'm like what world do you live in like we don't have a

00:24:14.140 high trust society i can't put um uh fruit in in a cart on the on the street and a little sign that

00:24:21.240 says take one banana and leave 50 cents and like you you what america do people think we're living 1.00

00:24:27.460 it joel the hysterical women at right wing watch are losing their minds right now they need to pop

00:24:35.800 some more pills yeah um but yeah no i mean it's just a it's a it's a one of the most basic i mean

00:24:43.040 you pick up any pretty much any text in the western political canon going all the way back to

00:24:48.340 plato's republic and it's uh you'll see different regime types and uh and the regime some of the

00:24:57.160 the regime types take on their own character and they shape the way that people think but also

00:25:01.460 they just the reason why these regime types work so regime types usually like you know king or

00:25:07.860 aristocracy um or sort of democracy and there's others but that's a basic idea like why do you

00:25:14.560 have these different regime types and it's because well this one this particular type

00:25:19.440 is actually more suited to the people than another type and this is this is not just some pagan

00:25:25.300 saying this i even i found this once in uh pagans or pagan uh calvin's in uh calvin's commentaries

00:25:32.660 and of course it's among the founders and everyone affirmed this uh and it's it's the idea that you

00:25:39.700 the form that that uh that not every form fits with every sort of person or people and that some

00:25:47.200 people can be at one point uh a king would best suit them and then a few generations later an

00:25:54.300 aristocracy or democracy or whatever um would best suit them or you know a republic is probably

00:26:00.280 better to say than a democracy right and this is just basic stuff uh it's really just as as time

00:26:05.380 and kind would say it's just basic stuff um in the tradition uh and and we should recognize that

00:26:12.540 so if we move away if as a people we move away such that the form of government is not actually

00:26:18.860 producing good i mean that's the purpose right so this is when people think people have to realize

00:26:23.340 is that the form of government this also includes laws um customs everything if if if none of that

00:26:30.280 if that together is not actually producing good then something's wrong and and it needs to be

00:26:35.380 changed like it's it's it's a the form of government is good only in so far that actually

00:26:41.300 produces good if there's something unsuitable about it or ill-suited for the people and it

00:26:47.200 produces their bad well then something needs to change but the purpose of the system is what it

00:26:52.160 does not not what particular label is assigned to it well this is public education okay but what 0.98

00:26:57.880 does it actually accomplish oh well it trains kids and indoctrinates them to be gay and communist

00:27:02.960 the purpose of the system is what it actually does yeah and also it's not it's not just good

00:27:09.780 in itself absolutely so if you take like just take our constitution our constitution is is good

00:27:16.100 as a sort of wise document for the people that it governed initially but the question is is it

00:27:22.380 is it absolutely good such that um even if it ends up not working for people you have to retain it

00:27:29.320 same thing with republic or like just just saying everything has to be a republican form of government

00:27:34.100 or has to be a democracy um is really treating the form as the end in itself right but no one in no

00:27:41.200 one in history i mean this this is like again why we're weird no one in history has affirmed that

00:27:47.540 the form of government is an absolute absolute necessity even if it doesn't suit the people

00:27:53.560 right so again this is just that the founders thought that the our system of government

00:27:59.780 was well suited for a people of self-government and an order of liberty right they and if it was

00:28:08.400 a different group of people they would have produced a different document uh right so we

00:28:13.840 can't have this absolutist view of of the form of government now i'm not like saying right now

00:28:19.860 we have to change the form of government to be clear but but we just have to get away from that

00:28:23.940 thinking that there is a sort of perfect that there's a there's the perfect is the only thing

00:28:29.580 we can have right um whereas oftentimes as again the tradition and basic stuff the the perfect is

00:28:36.560 the enemy of the good in the sense that the perfect can actually produce bad because because

00:28:40.680 the people aren't perfect or it's not suited for them they're not ready for it it's just so much

00:28:45.000 of it reminds me of parenting it's like um the ideal the ideal as a father is that um that my

00:28:52.540 children would be self-governed and i would be able to have a high degree of trust with them

00:28:57.860 and be more lax in in regards to uh rules for the household and uh expectations and that they

00:29:04.520 would just get it done. The problem is that my children are currently six, four, three, and one

00:29:10.540 years old. So that's not, so the ideal, you know, I mean, that's what I'm working towards. We'll get

00:29:16.520 there by God's grace one day. That's what we're working towards. But here's the irony. Putting

00:29:24.280 the ideal into play today, ironically, often ensures that the ideal is never accomplished

00:29:33.220 tomorrow. If you put the ideal, the ideal is not always the means to the ideal. There's usually

00:29:41.520 another means that shapes and forms and prepares a people, whether it be children or whether it

00:29:49.080 be a populace, you know, of a nation. It's usually some other regiment that serves as the training

00:29:55.520 ground that prepares people for the ideal. It's not just ideal from A to Z, it's Z is the ideal 0.51

00:30:02.200 And there's other steps along the way.

00:30:05.060 And I think of even the American project, you know, guys is, well, this is the best

00:30:08.060 form of government.

00:30:08.720 And I'm even willing to concede that point and say, I could be wrong, I'm fallible, but

00:30:14.320 yeah, I like it.

00:30:15.420 I like a constitutional republic.

00:30:17.340 I think that's great if the people, you know, are conducive for that.

00:30:21.380 But people say, you know, and that's been our thing from the beginning.

00:30:24.860 It's like, okay, but these people didn't just grow on trees.

00:30:27.440 They weren't hanging in midair.

00:30:28.580 They didn't just appear.

00:30:29.520 Americans didn't just, the founders and the covenanters and the pilgrims and the Puritans,

00:30:34.520 they didn't just appear. And that's your point that I find so refreshing and helpful.

00:30:39.260 These aren't people that just grew out of American soil one day and popped into existence. These are

00:30:44.900 people who transitioned from another place and another heritage and a thousand years of history,

00:30:52.680 namely this Anglo-Protestant heritage from Great Britain. And the funny thing is,

00:30:59.520 what's the thing that prepared for generations these people and their posterity to one day

00:31:05.220 be in America and have this constitutional republic? What's the thing that prepared

00:31:09.640 them for centuries in England? A monarchy. Isn't that interesting?

00:31:15.060 Yeah, well, I mean, more than that, too. It was the people's interaction with the monarchy.

00:31:22.320 I mean, some of the major events in the history of England, going back to the Magna Carta,

00:31:27.120 was the the people or the you know the the various powers um having a conflict resolution

00:31:34.080 conflict and then resolution so that's essentially what the magna carta was same thing with the the

00:31:39.260 glorious restoration um in in 1680s um and so i mean even the english civil war was essentially

00:31:46.400 a war of course against the king so there there was this tradition of resistance which again is

00:31:52.080 what the uh the founders appealed to so it was monarchy but it was also this interaction with

00:31:59.540 monarchy and so and then and then add to that the the nature of the new world was explicitly from

00:32:04.740 the very beginning you see this reflected in early massachusetts bay colony this like rejection of

00:32:10.020 aristocracy that was rooted in a kind of puritan um puritan religion essentially and uh and so

00:32:19.040 self-government uh minus uh without aristocracy and then you get into the founding where you have

00:32:25.660 a george washington who could have if he wanted to just become the king of america

00:32:30.840 uh and he denied that and they called him mr president um not king or some royal title

00:32:37.700 uh and so there there that uh and with that there was again a development of ordered liberty that

00:32:45.120 didn't need this sort of aristocracy i mean people have said like what why why was there why was there

00:32:50.540 so much trouble in france and there was so much trouble in um in germany and in the in the 19th

00:32:58.060 century and a lot of people think it's because of the stability of the monarchy uh and that people

00:33:02.960 could look up this is like a an old what's his name bad badget or bad shot i forget how to say

00:33:08.400 his name but it's an old claim of of of england that the modern people could look to the aristocracy

00:33:14.540 and kind of have a sort of stability and that's what's held england together for so long uh but

00:33:20.620 in america we didn't have the aristocracy but still kind of held together i mean you have the

00:33:24.380 civil war and other things but but generally speaking the idea of ordered liberty existed

00:33:28.700 apart from these uh these these kind of um aristocratic figures i mean you have you have

00:33:33.660 andrew jackson's and lincoln's and that sort but but still that that's the that's our tradition

00:33:38.460 um and you you wonder now if we could still have that without a figure this is one reason why i

00:33:45.100 brought up the idea of a christian prince in my book and that was that we need some guy to be a

00:33:51.540 unifier um and but within the tradition the american tradition people think when i say

00:33:56.300 christian prince they a dictator i'm thinking some sort of like some sort of modern form of

00:34:02.460 dictator right i really in our tradition means someone like george washington right so someone

00:34:07.980 whose own presence he was a tall man he sat in and um in the federal convention debates that

00:34:13.860 produced our constitution as presiding and he didn't say much but his presence there it added

00:34:20.440 to legitimacy added to the gravity of the event his support for it of course helped he did two

00:34:26.000 terms and then humbly said i'm done and even decades afterwards people would have a little

00:34:31.720 on their mantle they'd have a little image of george washington as if he was the guy who held

00:34:37.620 the country together he knew it he knew that he was a type of cincinnatus who um he was a sort of

00:34:44.480 as my envision a christian prince who is the embodiment of the people but he also had this

00:34:49.280 again this anglo protestant um humility to say i'm not going to become king or dominate you guys

00:34:58.240 even though i could probably do that i'm going to retire and go go back to the farm uh and he did

00:35:04.520 that and he established that tradition ever since so that's the sort of people person i'm talking

00:35:09.540 about this like the classical notion of someone like cincinnatus leaving his farm to solve the

00:35:16.340 the issues of the day to for the people to then rally around and solve it and then go back and

00:35:22.740 that's the genius of our system or the genius of our tradition the anglo the american anglo-pros

00:35:28.300 tradition is that you have a sense of duty mixed with the type of humility to then exit when you

00:35:34.440 must. And someone like FDR violated that and all that. But you have the George Washingtons,

00:35:42.240 and that's my notion of an American Christian prince. 0.95

00:35:46.380 Right. No, that's good. And we still have those systems, but the problem is that that's not just 0.99

00:35:50.360 like, that's not just a form or a system of a guy who comes in and has a humble presence presiding

00:35:55.980 over these things and, you know, courage and, you know, all these. And then when he's done,

00:36:01.140 He doesn't try to hold on to power, but he lets it go and is content to go back to the

00:36:05.580 farm.

00:36:06.120 That's not just a system.

00:36:07.440 That's a, that's a certain type.

00:36:09.120 That's a high caliber man.

00:36:10.700 It's not just the system.

00:36:11.660 It's the person.

00:36:12.660 We don't have those people we have. 0.94

00:36:15.100 Instead, we have, you know, boomers who want to, you know, like take organ donors and AI 0.73

00:36:23.680 and live forever, you know, never let go of power. 0.78

00:36:28.080 meanwhile they you know they can't control their bowel movements you know in a public speech like

00:36:32.740 that i mean that we're nowhere near is the the exact opposite of george washington you know

00:36:37.840 again so at the leader level and then at the people level at the populace in in both regards

00:36:42.620 it seems like one of the major problems is we just don't have the people we don't have that

00:36:46.540 caliber of of man of person um for the current form of government that we have

00:36:53.340 yeah and uh and yeah and unfortunately the the sort of people we have in mind 0.96

00:37:03.560 to rise up in the younger generations are being in a way held back by by the boomers and and

00:37:09.640 others i mean you just see in the church when i when i talk about having you know young men

00:37:14.720 fulfilling their potential in all aspects of their life not only spiritual not only mental

00:37:19.640 but also physical you see these guys lose their minds as if like oh it's nichian uh you know like 0.81

00:37:25.460 us encouraging people who are 20 to maximize the potential of their youth right violates the boomer

00:37:31.660 mentality of you know it's it's as if they they prefer everyone to be fat and weak and like just

00:37:38.560 obey like whatever the the church ladies say um instead of being strong and assertive and physically

00:37:45.360 you know mentally and physically fit uh for for that um to to serve their country and people

00:37:51.760 it's it's like anathema and so it's very unfortunate it's as if they're trying to hold

00:37:57.240 back then prevent the rise of of of of a greatness that does tremendous good in the world right it's

00:38:06.180 a i don't like the word gnostic toss but there is a sort of gnosticism there that there's like

00:38:10.380 there's a spiritualism side so it doesn't matter if you're fat or get trampled on by the church

00:38:15.940 ladies it that's all kind of good in a sense because you're denying yourself or something

00:38:20.700 it's a perversion and subversion of christian truth um and so what we well you know what i'm

00:38:27.280 trying to do what i know you're trying to do and other people is encourage younger people guys who

00:38:30.680 are like i don't know how old you are but i'm 40 41 trying to say hey look like if you're 20

00:38:36.300 you don't need to be fat and lazy and weak right you don't need to do that like you should you

00:38:42.360 should seek to do within the limit within the limits of your capacities and capabilities try

00:38:47.260 to maximize yourself in the i i wish that i did that when i was 20 and you get older and you're

00:38:52.560 like well yeah i should have done that so i'm saying look like youth is good like and take

00:38:57.360 advantage of it um to develop yourself and be the best person you can be and i think if we have that

00:39:03.560 kind of environmentally of that sort of ethos within the christian world we would have men

00:39:09.580 that are just outstanding and great and and uh not not think that i mean i know you're a pastor

00:39:15.620 but there is there's this thing this is i beat on this like i'm always saying like you gotta stop

00:39:21.560 thinking that like the the pinnacle of greatness is being a being a pastor being a pastor is

00:39:26.620 wonderful it's great it's essential it's like crucial for people's like um uh for the good

00:39:31.980 life to submit to a pastor but at the same time it's not there's other forms of greatness there's

00:39:38.640 greatness in politics there's greatness in athletics and there's there's all sorts of

00:39:43.520 things that you can achieve in a christian life and you can do these other things and most people

00:39:48.100 are best suited for those other things and not being pastor uh and but in the evangelical world

00:39:52.820 it's like you get a job and your job is so that you uh have enough money so you can do your like

00:39:59.300 your international missions trip twice a year yeah anything else you talked about this in your talk

00:40:04.340 it's like people think that everything is purely instrumental for some spiritual end when actually

00:40:09.160 no there's earthly goods here of inheritance of self-development that actually can produce

00:40:14.280 tremendous amounts of good right and those things do serve a spiritual end but the spiritual end is

00:40:20.260 not always global missions it's not always um simply eternal salvation of individual souls

00:40:27.420 There are, it's not just that there are spiritual ends and then there are temporal earthly goods.

00:40:33.760 It's no, there are actually, there's a multitude of different spiritual ends beyond just eternal

00:40:40.900 individual conversion and justification.

00:40:44.460 Even with the gospel, you know, Owen, John Owen talked about how, you know, justification

00:40:49.920 is the heart of the gospel, but it's not the end of the gospel.

00:40:52.700 The end of the gospel is not just being reminded again and again, uh, of justification by faith

00:40:57.400 alone. Uh, but the end purpose aim of the gospel is not justification, but rather communion with

00:41:04.420 the triune God, uh, that, that all of this is serving, uh, the purpose of being able to eternally

00:41:10.480 belly up to the table, uh, the wedding supper of the lamb and commune and dying and feast and

00:41:16.500 fellowship uh with uh with the triune god enjoying fellowship with him forever and so even in terms

00:41:23.960 of spiritual lens it's not just conversion it's never less not saying it's something other than

00:41:28.640 or less than but it's more than merely conversion so these temporal goods whether it be physical

00:41:34.840 training which is of some value and that's part of the the problem is that we um yeah we we just

00:41:41.800 we're, uh, we have this because it's easy. It's easy to just say, Oh, everything else is of no

00:41:48.040 value. This one thing is of ultimate value. Uh, that's actually really easy. Like there's the,

00:41:53.260 um, the old moniker, uh, I had a friend who had the tattoo and he deeply regrets it, you know, 0.96

00:41:57.580 but it said that moderate moderation is for cowards, which is a really foolish saying, 0.95

00:42:03.300 you know? So it's basically like, just, you know, pick, pick one or two or three things 0.97

00:42:07.180 and go all in and then everything else don't do it at all, which is not, it's not a Christian

00:42:11.780 idea. The Christian idea is, no, there's actually like a thousand things, and they're not necessarily

00:42:19.040 of ultimate value. And there's a triage, and some things are more valuable, and spiritual things

00:42:24.080 are of eternal value. But it's not as simple as just saying, hey, everything's a distraction,

00:42:29.640 leave it entirely alone, pick these two or three things, give it everything you got.

00:42:34.640 That's actually easier. That appeals, I think, to apathy, a lazy person, a lazy man. 0.81

00:42:40.300 But in reality, the actuality is that, no, there's like at any given point in my life,

00:42:48.320 there's probably a thousand things that have varied degrees of value. And I'm expected to

00:42:54.900 weigh through these things with discernment and wisdom and give 30 minutes here and three hours

00:42:59.980 there and 20 minutes. So physical training is not of ultimate value. It's also not of no value.

00:43:05.780 it's of some value, which means I need to give it some time. And that's just one example that

00:43:12.040 the Apostle Paul cites, but I think there are a million different temporal goods that could fall

00:43:17.160 into the some value bucket, that category. And to figure that out and then to give the things of

00:43:24.400 some value, some energy, and some time is a lot of work, which is, I think, why pietism appeals

00:43:32.700 and Gnosticism appeals, because it's easy.

00:43:36.180 It's actually easier.

00:43:37.400 It sounds really good, but it's actually way easier.

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00:45:06.720 America is a country that was founded for the purpose of allowing Christians

00:45:09.440 to do their duty before God and not to have their consciences ruled

00:45:12.240 by the doctrines and commandments of men.

00:45:14.520 Reese Fund exists in order to see the Ten Commandments properly applied,

00:45:18.300 not just as a plaque on the wall, but to actually be used in business

00:45:21.540 as though they're commandments from God that we're supposed to obey.

00:45:24.980 Our goal is to find businesses and to buy them and to build them up.

00:45:30.180 We want to find manufacturing businesses and use them to make sure that we can maintain our capacity to do things here.

00:45:36.800 Reese Fund, Christian Capital, boldly deployed.

00:45:42.280 Yeah, I mean, one thing is that we tend to treat these goods as kind of like zero sum in the sense that if you're devoting your attention to politics or some issue that you care for,

00:45:54.980 Well, then you must then not be devoting your attention to something that's higher in value.

00:45:59.820 And so we kind of have this zero sum mentality.

00:46:02.400 And this is where the, like, what we call the Jesus juke comes in.

00:46:05.300 It's like, you really care about this one issue.

00:46:07.220 That's kind of more of a temporal thing, I guess, or earthly thing.

00:46:10.980 And then, but, oh, you care, like you, like you caring about that means you're not caring

00:46:15.100 about these other things, like these more spiritual things.

00:46:17.600 So it's like a zero sum mentality.

00:46:19.420 And there is a, there is a legitimate like concern, a pastoral concern.

00:46:23.220 If someone's intense about an issue, a good pastor would be like, okay, look, I affirm that you care about this.

00:46:28.560 I think it's good that you care about this, but let's make sure that it's not a distraction from something that's more important.

00:46:34.120 So you will affirm that it's good, that they care about an issue, but the pastoral concern is that make sure it doesn't distract from these other things as well.

00:46:44.660 um nevertheless it should never be oh you shouldn't care about this issue intensely

00:46:49.760 because then you can't care about these other things intensely right uh and right and so that

00:46:56.660 that's like the the jesus juke and pastors can do that sometimes if they're not thinking clearly

00:47:00.640 but yeah i think you're absolutely right like you have these there's there's there's a bunch

00:47:05.000 of different goods out in the world and to to be a complete person is not only to be you know

00:47:11.460 hyper-spiritual but it's also to be a good a good father that provides material support for their

00:47:17.160 family i mean that means you have to go outside and work usually and bring home money and then

00:47:20.980 that all that that's there's a good there that and it's a duty um same thing with

00:47:25.660 duty to your your parents um you know uh and uh and duty to your community to your church to your

00:47:33.460 church and their their material needs there's all sorts of goods that we have to kind of devote our

00:47:37.480 attention to um and to devote one like as i that we become a quasi hermit you know like one of those

00:47:43.240 old those hermits of old where they essentially distance themselves from society to focus on

00:47:48.200 their own particular spiritual like the desert fathers or something like that yeah yeah or they 0.98

00:47:53.320 end up neglecting the the completeness of of your duty so you they fulfill the principle but but

00:47:59.780 miss all the secondaries right which then means you fail you fall short um so and so that's that's

00:48:07.420 the problem but yeah i mean um and what i say is like yeah when when you are united to christ

00:48:14.300 you you justify but you're also restored meaning that the things that the things of this life

00:48:19.740 the faculties have been restored in in him such that you can now actually act um as a as intended

00:48:28.340 by by god you know meaning that you can't act perfectly you're not never going to be perfect

00:48:32.800 in this side of life but you still are regenerated you still are in a way definitively sanctified

00:48:39.540 and so then what does it mean to be human in this world it's not only to uh to do spiritual things

00:48:45.280 or to go to church and worship god it's also to labor to have a vocation that you do well at and

00:48:52.280 that you do good to others through that vocation not only directly in the service but also in

00:48:57.240 acquiring the means that to support those who depend upon you so all those things are just the

00:49:02.600 so we're restored to do these things and so they're part of a part of our duty and i would say

00:49:09.080 for the one reason like well why do i need to be physically fit well i mean you don't have to be a

00:49:13.700 bodybuilder but i mean to be a bodybuilder takes a tremendous amount of time and and so you could

00:49:18.400 actually be doing other things i'm not saying don't don't be a bodybuilder but i'm saying

00:49:22.300 we shouldn't think that we should think that that if like if if you're like a builder for example

00:49:28.160 or a construction worker you can't devote two hours a day to go working out you have to have

00:49:32.680 your your strength to do construction right so uh the point being that um uh but whatever it is

00:49:39.480 you should be fit such that you can aid and be of service to your neighbor and have the one thing i

00:49:45.240 realized uh when i moved to the south when i moved to louisiana for several years um is that one

00:49:51.560 reason why these guys like have big trucks i mean part of it's a cultural thing but it's also the

00:49:57.780 people like owning trucks because they can be resourceful to others what i found is that whenever

00:50:02.840 i needed some help there were just guys open up oh i got my truck you can borrow it i'll come over

00:50:07.620 and i'll help you with this stuff it's to be useful person to your neighbor for your friends

00:50:12.720 and others to have this this uh this resource um and so that's what i mean like you you be fit and

00:50:19.600 you have these things in service to others. That's why I'm scared to get a truck, Stephen,

00:50:25.320 because if I get a truck, then I think people in the church are going to every Saturday ask me to

00:50:30.380 help them move. That is true. Yeah. No, that's really helpful. These are my last two questions

00:50:37.500 and then you can maybe do your best to answer these and then any concluding thoughts and we

00:50:41.960 can land the plane. But just for the listener, I know what you mean. And so I think, you know,

00:50:46.760 uh, yeah, I read your book, took me a second to figure it out. I saw, you know, your infamous

00:50:51.720 tweet, uh, that everybody was, you know, denouncing and like, how could you, you know, the lone

00:50:56.880 bulwark, uh, tweet. And I, you know, I didn't have, I'll, I'll say it publicly. I, um, I did

00:51:02.520 not retweet you and say, this is, uh, insightful and, uh, undeniably true. I also, uh, did not

00:51:09.460 retweet you and say, oh my goodness, let me clutch my pearls. I was like, uh, I'm going to,

00:51:14.200 I'm going to let that one. We're not ready for that one. In a couple of years, now time in the

00:51:19.480 province of God has, for the most part, vindicated to you. I mean, you've gotten a lot of people have

00:51:23.820 come around. It's pretty crazy how the Overton window has moved so quickly to where something

00:51:28.280 so controversial that never should have been, but was, has now people are like, oh yeah, that's not

00:51:34.140 crazy at all. That's just the statistics of voting patterns and speaking not of individuals, but

00:51:38.820 group dynamics. Anyway, so all that being said, I know what you mean. I read your book. I've been

00:51:43.460 watching you online you know we've had a little bit of conversation in person and um and i think

00:51:49.740 i'm just kind of on that same trajectory um theologically and politically and those kinds

00:51:54.480 of things uh but for the listener who may not understand some of these things i you know it

00:52:00.980 was helpful probably for guys in the audience during your talk when you know towards the end

00:52:05.300 you said here are some of my you know favorite anglo protestants and you said well you know like

00:52:09.380 booker t washington or clarence thomas you know and then and then also so one first question two

00:52:16.580 questions first question uh how is clarence thomas and for the listener if you don't know

00:52:20.900 he's a black uh supreme court justice married to a white woman how you know and very conservative

00:52:25.940 and one of the best supreme court justices we have and we're grateful for um but how is he an

00:52:30.700 anglo-protestant and then secondly when you say ethnicity uh you know even in your book you know

00:52:36.460 one of the things that i was able to pick up on i guess a year and a half ago now um but i was like

00:52:41.460 he's using ethnicity the way that dead guys used to use the word um we've boiled we've truncated

00:52:47.760 the word ethnicity to exclusively referring to color pigment shades of you know skin pigment

00:52:55.660 pigment um but used to ethnicity it seems as though it had a it was much more encompassing

00:53:02.620 it baked into ethnicity was culture and customs and nationality. And that's one of the problems

00:53:08.580 because in the old world, you don't, it was uncommon in mine. Maybe I'm wrong, but in my

00:53:14.200 perception, you didn't have a lot of countries like America. Japan is Japanese, you know? And

00:53:21.520 so when you say, you know, Japanese, it's like, well, are you referring to ethnicity or nationality? 0.94

00:53:26.120 And the answer is yes, because it's just, it's both. And China is the same way. And 0.58

00:53:30.780 the Sudan is the same way. And, you know, and so it's really not until very recently in terms of

00:53:36.100 human history and predominantly in the West and, and most, you know, most blatantly in,

00:53:42.140 in our country, in America, that we've severed nationality from ethnicity. So ethnicity just

00:53:47.740 means color now and nationality means citizenship and, you know, these kinds of things. So anyways,

00:53:53.360 all that being said, how is Clarence Thomas an Anglo Protestant, because we're talking about

00:53:57.540 culture and not just pigment and then on the pigment um topic um what does the word ethnicity

00:54:04.040 mean how would how would you advocate for guys you know using that word and entailing in it more

00:54:10.560 than just color do those questions make sense yeah absolutely um yeah when i when i chose to

00:54:16.660 write the chapter on the nation i did use the word ethnicity uh instead of race and instead of um

00:54:25.020 um instead of culture and the the reason was is that is that culture strikes me as too much like

00:54:32.660 uh like oh we all agree in the same culture at that moment so there's a sort of snapshot in time

00:54:38.880 type mentality like when you think of culture not necessarily um but then race also doesn't work

00:54:45.360 because there's you could have a bunch of like white folks who are actually very different um

00:54:50.340 in terms of their culture and their national.

00:54:53.220 So the difference between French and English

00:54:55.040 is just really striking,

00:54:56.300 or just between Hungarian and English

00:54:59.020 would be very striking and different.

00:55:01.920 And so it wouldn't make any sense to use race.

00:55:04.400 But ethnicity, the reason why I used it the way I did,

00:55:06.880 which refers to culture, but also ancestry.

00:55:10.020 So I wanted to connect,

00:55:11.780 because of course it matters that your people,

00:55:15.420 that you are connected to this place through generations going back so i of course i'm

00:55:23.700 connected to the united states because my grandfather was in world war ii of course i

00:55:28.680 mean that i i am i'm connected because he fought a loved one fought in that in that major that

00:55:34.480 major kind of national struggle or you know my grandparents went through the great depression

00:55:40.240 as kids like these history thing the history we learn in the books is not simply the these random

00:55:47.800 things that are these things that happen to these humans i'm now studying on a page it's people who

00:55:52.720 are my ancestors my loved ones um so of course like and your ancestry matters i mean imagine

00:55:58.880 if you i mean everyone or a lot of people have had experience with hey this is my grandparents

00:56:04.140 house or their property and even if they no one even if you don't know who owns it now you'll

00:56:09.200 drive by that and you'll see it and you'll have a sort of affection for it because it embodies the

00:56:15.220 the the life and activity of your grandparents so in napa california my my uh the the wolf side

00:56:23.220 of my family owned the wolf ranch and i remember driving up the driveway uh to go to christmas

00:56:28.820 parties and seeing aunts and uncles and cousins and having this great time and now it's not owned

00:56:34.100 by the family unfortunately anymore um but uh i still occasionally when i when i'm going back to

00:56:40.260 napa to see grandmother from the other side i drive by and they still have this little wolf

00:56:45.240 up that's called the wolf ranch and the wolf holding a star on it and so there's affection

00:56:49.100 there's an affection there built into memory so of course like that place my dad my dad and his

00:56:55.000 and uncle and grandfather built the house that there with their own hands wow so we don't own

00:56:59.860 it i don't know even know who owns it now um but if that house burned down i would i wouldn't lose

00:57:05.660 anything materially but of course i'd lose something else and so what i'm trying to describe

00:57:10.480 in the book is that something else that there is that that thing that is in a way like emplaced or

00:57:17.020 embodying the place and so of course like your ancestry matters i mean uh people call that like 0.96

00:57:22.600 blood and soil but are you just are you are you dumb i mean i like like who like who who who can 0.97

00:57:30.580 be so kind of insensitive and lack the affection of seeing a field or a battlefield or um or some 1.00

00:57:40.120 house even a shack that your grandparents or great-grandparents lived life in or on or whatever

00:57:48.480 like who can be so unfeeling that they wouldn't have something some connection to that that is

00:57:54.580 beyond property rights or something like that right uh and so yeah that's that's what i was

00:57:59.600 trying to get like so ethnicity is that a rhetorical question because i have an answer boomers

00:58:03.400 boomers is the answer yeah yeah um that's a property right and it's worth this much money

00:58:10.160 and that's all it is no i'm just kidding yeah not all but a lot yeah and to the credit of like

00:58:16.000 our generation i think millennials started to try to recover something um a different mentality on

00:58:21.680 that yeah uh even though we recovered all sorts of bad things too but right uh but yeah so of course

00:58:27.340 it matters and and so um and that means that like it your connection to the american people if you

00:58:33.020 take that broader your connection to the american people and our history does it does matter that

00:58:39.940 your ancestry goes back into that uh and this is why if your people were germans back in 1810

00:58:46.760 i mean you're just as american as anyone else because you have been here interacted and lived

00:58:52.800 with this and you've participated in the major events since you since you got here there's a

00:58:57.780 there's you have actual connection to the people in the place and you've probably intermarried and

00:59:01.800 all that um and so yeah so it matters but at the same time our my way of ethnicity is not entirely

00:59:10.720 just a ancestral like genetic thing genetics thing and this is why you asked about clarence thomas

00:59:16.880 i also mentioned santiago pliego who is a actually born in mexico and now he's here and he's american

00:59:23.460 citizen naturalized citizen and you talk to him and it's like he he desires not only that he can

00:59:30.080 be sort of grafted into this american heritage but also that his kids will be as well he wants

00:59:35.560 his kids to be just as american as me or in you and anyone else so so the ethnicity then is like

00:59:44.120 an open thing in that the people who come here or existed here but are but are self-consciously

00:59:52.880 kind of bringing themselves into that heritage and want to be part of it not subvert it not

00:59:58.240 undermine it right not like hold on to the other stuff but like become one of us assimilate um

01:00:04.060 and they can be and i think i think like even santiago could be like yeah my people is like

01:00:10.020 george washington yeah like so i and this is again this is like the american i don't think

01:00:14.860 this is me being sentimental i think that's just the the american tradition has always been very

01:00:19.820 open also very kind of like exclusivist and and what the left to call xenophobic but also uh when

01:00:27.280 people come here this openness to conformity but that's the problem is the problem is that where

01:00:33.060 america was open but it was open to people who wanted to be american they wanted to join now

01:00:40.200 america is open to people who have like no desire to be i mean on on voting ballots we have you know

01:00:46.800 there are voting ballots in some places where you have three languages like if if that's not a sign

01:00:51.620 of of a nation that's just utterly defeated then i don't know what is i mean to like we're gonna

01:00:56.660 to have this voting ballot in spanish why we're we're english we speak english that's that we're

01:01:04.900 americans you know and so to be to have some measure of principled openness uh is great but

01:01:12.220 it's not an openness to come here and still be a somalian no it's to come here because you love

01:01:17.020 american you want to be american right right it's it's the desire yeah so you can either you can

01:01:24.660 either yeah you can come here and kind of exist as a as a kind of um as like a second culture

01:01:32.460 but uh but not the core so you you would essentially be you you'd have a a tolerated

01:01:39.380 way of life but it wouldn't be the part of the core or you can actually kind of bring and graft

01:01:44.320 yourself into the the the core and and that's what i mean by i mean even i mean clarence thomas of

01:01:51.760 course he's he's he's descendant from from slaves so uh in a way like when we talk about heritage

01:01:59.860 americans it's it's proper to speak of um even the kind of sort of black subcultures that are here

01:02:06.900 um the reason i i would say that that he that clarence thomas is part of a sort of angle

01:02:13.740 protestant ethnos is that he has from from what i can tell self-consciously said i'm american i'm

01:02:22.280 and i'm and this is this is this is who i am uh and so he's kind of brought himself into that

01:02:28.380 um i mean this is why people call him like you know the oreo and all sorts of horrible names

01:02:33.200 uncle tom that uncle tom all that and that's what it is it's it's p this is the same thing like

01:02:37.920 webb du bois would call like booker t washington is yeah people hate him because he yeah and they

01:02:43.580 because he's an anglo-protestant yeah they call him that because they have identified anglo-protestant

01:02:49.180 as as only as essentially a white man's uh which broadly speaking in terms of population has been

01:02:56.360 right um but but then they just say oh you're you're no longer black and now you're white

01:03:01.680 right um but and there's no i mean there's no truth in that in itself but it is recognizing

01:03:07.280 like when they accuse people like soul and uh clarence thomas and others of being those things

01:03:14.060 they are recognizing rightfully that they have actually now that they are they are part of

01:03:21.660 the the core american ethnos and that's why they want to denounce them and call them all those 0.94

01:03:27.300 names uh they'd prefer that they're no longer or not in that core and they would be a sort of like

01:03:33.340 secondary stream of of american ethnos but not the i mean the core the core has always been

01:03:40.080 angled protestant and uh but again it's an open ethnicity essentially you can have like like a

01:03:45.140 antonin scalia uh he is a italian roman catholic and he has this great story you can watch as a

01:03:51.860 minute and a half and he says that he was in it um no he's in italy first right he went to italy

01:03:57.580 he was in and then he went to england yeah yeah right he was in he was in like uh continental

01:04:03.380 europe for a while from from switzerland and then italy and then he said he went to england

01:04:07.880 i had never been there before after all those all that time in in continental europe and he says he

01:04:13.460 was home like this is home and he was essentially saying we're anglo he said anglo-saxon i would

01:04:19.440 say anglo-protestant but we're uh an anglo-saxon people even though he's genetically from i don't

01:04:25.340 know southern italy or something like that right i know i love that story because it's you know

01:04:30.040 here he is he's american in terms of you know both culture and his citizenship nationality

01:04:35.700 but then he goes to uh italy and that's what you know that's his his you know his blood his you

01:04:41.880 know his ancestry um but he feels more at home in great britain than he does in italy why because

01:04:48.680 uh because his whole life he's been in america in america came america is this british project

01:04:56.500 it's this anglo you know protestant project and so naturally his his his italianness uh did not

01:05:03.640 resonate as profoundly in in italy as his americanness resonated in in england um so yeah

01:05:11.100 exactly and again that that just shows it so it would be again i i don't i don't want us to think

01:05:19.040 that this is just a cultural thing as we think it does it does matter i think people need to

01:05:26.120 remind themselves and become conscious of this and this is one reason why i emphasize it

01:05:30.340 you need to be conscious of the fact that you have ancestry here right like that you need to

01:05:36.940 restore that you may not even know like i don't i know that i have like some preacher from

01:05:41.380 connecticut in the late 1600s in my my my ancestral line but i don't know everything

01:05:47.000 else but you know what you know what does matter though is that literally my great great great

01:05:51.880 grandparents they've been here since 16 something and that that matters uh and and everyone here

01:05:58.780 and if it means that you don't have anyone here well you're interacting with people who do and

01:06:05.740 you're you are in your living life with people who do and you can see yourself as as your sort

01:06:12.280 of life project as bringing yourself into that to tell i i forget who it was i think ady roble

01:06:17.600 was uh was it him who said that his father said we're not speaking spanish in this house we're

01:06:22.140 speaking english and that's because we're we're becoming american so you can deliberately you

01:06:27.960 can do these things to become uh one of us but again today that the the the the governing

01:06:35.460 principle now is that actually no you just be exactly what you were before and just affirm

01:06:40.680 these propositions take an oath and you're in and live in america is just an idea and an economic

01:06:46.160 zone and reap the benefits without really any commitment um yeah and that is not sustainable

01:06:54.300 and really send send send a good portion of your income overseas i mean in central and south

01:07:01.080 america it's amazing how much of their economies are actually sustained by people in the u.s sending

01:07:06.160 money back and so the incentive structure for so anyway yeah that's for south america but then when

01:07:11.780 it comes to ukraine we send money through tax dollars you know or israel yeah you're right you

01:07:17.100 know but no that's that's really helpful i'd like um just as you were you know the the whether it

01:07:21.480 be uh clarence thomas thomas soul i mean even vody bacham would fall into this category but

01:07:26.660 that was helpful thinking uh because i watched the documentaries i don't know if you saw them

01:07:30.400 there was an uncle Tom documentary and then an uncle Tom too. And, and they were helpful. And

01:07:35.280 especially the second one, I really liked the second one. They had Votie Bacham in it a lot.

01:07:39.200 And, but it's helpful to think like, okay, what is this accusation, this pejorative, this being

01:07:44.880 levied against, you know, black men who are, you know, like Clarence Thomas, Anglo, you know,

01:07:52.760 Protestants that have really adopted and fully committed and assimilated into this American

01:07:57.780 heritage and love it and identify with it. And, you know, and so they're being, you know, cursed

01:08:02.600 and demeaned because of that decision and because of that assimilation. And, you know, what, but 0.55

01:08:08.060 what's contained in this, you know, pejorative of Uncle Tom that's being levied. And I think one of

01:08:13.160 the things is, you know, two things that's being contained. One is that there really is a hegemony.

01:08:17.080 There really is a core culture of America, and it must be the dominant culture. If not,

01:08:23.000 then we're just fractured and splintered and a house divided against itself cannot stand it's

01:08:28.020 just not sustainable so there one there really is a core culture and that core culture is anglo

01:08:33.120 protestant and the fact that that's levied against a black man whereas it wouldn't be levied against

01:08:39.120 necessarily a white man we just say hey i hate whiteness um but there'd be a recognition of like 0.95

01:08:43.800 but of course you're white because you know you're of course you're acting like an anglo protestant 0.99

01:08:47.360 because you're white. And I hate it. But with a black man, the levied charge of Uncle Tom is 1.00

01:08:53.540 basically a charge of betrayal. You're a traitor to your own kind. And what that to me indicates 1.00

01:08:59.860 is that not only is there a dominant culture in America's history and heritage that's Anglo 0.95

01:09:04.420 Protestant, but that that dominant culture has been, in terms of skin color, predominantly made

01:09:09.560 up of white people. And it doesn't mean that non-white people can't be a part of it, but it

01:09:13.940 has been majority european um in terms of of of color it has been um predominantly white and

01:09:21.140 that's why someone like vody bacham would be accused by the left you know as being a turncoat

01:09:27.780 a traitor and that's what uncle tom means and so i think to recognize that is not to be exclusive

01:09:33.800 and it's certainly not to be racist which is a word that just has virtually no meaning at this

01:09:39.100 point. It's none of those things, but it is to recognize we are a distinct people, a distinct

01:09:44.220 country. We have a heritage, a history, a foundation. What is that? What is that culture?

01:09:51.560 Multiculturalism is not our strength. We want to have a dominant culture. What is it? What has it 0.80

01:09:57.100 historically been made up of? And then who all can join? But then in joining, what are the

01:10:03.200 distinctives and what are the commitments and what does this entail? All these are incredibly

01:10:07.960 important questions. And none of these are, they're not colorblind, but they're also not,

01:10:15.640 but they're also, it's, it's, it is not a sinful, a sinful racial partiality. It's

01:10:22.160 acknowledging race, but, but not sinfully. Like I remember even the statement, I think we showed

01:10:28.280 you or somebody in our, our little crew showed you, this was a year, half, half ago, and we're

01:10:32.680 going to actually make it the final draft public. It's been forever. A lot of the guys are SBC,

01:10:37.960 and they're fighting for the life to try to keep out women pastors right now. But eventually when 0.96

01:10:42.760 all that's done, we're going to publish our statement on Christian nationalism and the

01:10:46.160 gospel, the final draft. And one of the things that we changed was initially we said, we repudiate

01:10:52.960 the sin of ethnic partiality. And after getting some feedback from other guys and thinking through

01:10:59.060 that and thinking biblically about that, we changed it to, we repudiate instead of the sin

01:11:03.920 of ethnic partiality, we change it to we repudiate sinful ethnic partiality, recognizing that in the

01:11:10.720 realm of partiality, it can be done sinfully, but not inherently. And, you know, for Japan to

01:11:19.060 have a preference for Japanese people is not inherently sinful. It could be. There can be

01:11:26.060 sinful expressions of that, just kind of in the same way that anger, Jesus says, in your anger,

01:11:30.840 do not sin so it's not just to be angry is inherently sinful but there is a way in anger

01:11:36.600 to behave sinfully um and that that's just i don't know i i'm thinking through these things

01:11:43.080 and and that's just a conversation that right now the the typical american just can't handle

01:11:48.700 they just lose their mind what people don't get like when when we when i say things like

01:11:53.980 you should prefer your own or you should prefer your own ethnicity as i've as i've defined it

01:11:58.720 already but when i say that i'm talking i'm saying that it's actually it it's not that it's not that

01:12:06.660 it's it's good in itself regardless of the effects but that it's good to prefer your own family your

01:12:15.160 own parents your own children and your own people your own canon group ethnicity because of the way

01:12:22.340 that we are made by god that is the way to bring about good so a nation should prefer people who

01:12:29.720 are similar because if you bring people in who are similar they can assimilate into the collective

01:12:35.320 life of that people just like in j like again japan why would i mean japan's slipping on this

01:12:40.460 a little bit but one reason why they've preferred have very restrictive immigration is to keep japan

01:12:46.580 japanese right as a distinct ethnicity and they knew that wisely knew that if you bring in a

01:12:52.040 mass outsiders it'll change the nature of japan and and what's happened in japan i mean you go 0.85

01:12:59.240 there it's the safest cleanest country in the entire world um and there's been recent actually

01:13:04.380 some immigrants my or they've brought in and there's been videos i've seen where well not so

01:13:09.160 safe and not so clean um and so yeah so like if the point being is that that that um the ability

01:13:18.200 to interact with people not only via language but also through cultural and and mutual understanding

01:13:23.360 of manners and customs uh and to be able to like just even feel the accent i remember i was just

01:13:30.900 just at the airport i was struggling to try to get answers and in dallas because like where do i go

01:13:36.320 to get the the the um the courtesy van and like i couldn't communicate with anyone uh because it

01:13:42.840 was just such just like this uh uh you know um it's like it's like being in babble and all so

01:13:48.600 right uh no texas is crazy man it's great it's like where where am i yeah yeah and um

01:13:56.140 anyway the point being is that that there's actually good there's a there's good it's good

01:14:02.300 to be around people where you can communicate as as well as possible so that we can all achieve

01:14:09.540 not only collective projects but your own individual project or what you're up to at the

01:14:13.100 moment so i like again americans have to get like everyone christians have to get out of their mind

01:14:18.240 this idea that like preferring your own ethnic group is some good in itself that we ought to do

01:14:22.980 no it's like if you if you just look at not only the social science data but your own experience

01:14:28.060 you'll see that you gravitate towards people who are similar precisely because of the good involved

01:14:33.640 in that the good in effect and that's what my argument that's my argument from the book 0.92

01:14:38.480 and but people just i don't know if it's race brain or what it is but they're incapable

01:14:42.760 of of seeing that even though they experience it nowadays daily right almost daily they

01:14:49.420 experience the difficulty of being around difference just just language alone you you

01:14:54.760 call a helpline you know whatever yeah technical support you know because your webcam's not working

01:14:59.980 and like this like the almost audible sigh of relief that i'll have uh when when the person

01:15:07.900 who answers on the other side of the line uh speaks coherent english you know and i'm just

01:15:12.120 oh phew you know because because i know we you know that so much has been outsourced and

01:15:17.620 especially with technical support and those kinds of things and hotlines and um support staff and

01:15:23.100 and uh i know that i've got like a 90 chance that the person who's going to pick up the phone

01:15:27.680 i i can barely understand you know and and and so it's just it's uh if nothing else i mean god

01:15:34.720 even says that in Genesis 11, that, you know, if they remain united, one people, that there's

01:15:41.740 nothing they cannot do. And therefore he confuses their languages and not, it is a judgment,

01:15:47.260 but it's a judgment with mercy baked into the judgment pie. Because really what it does is

01:15:52.440 it gets mankind, it doesn't throw them off the rails in their sin and arrogance and pride they

01:15:59.540 were off the rails. God's judgment of confusing their languages actually gets them back on track

01:16:04.120 with their original design.

01:16:05.220 They actually say it's not just a sin of arrogance saying, we'll build a tower to the heavens,

01:16:09.940 but it's also a sin of direct rebellion to the command given in the garden to be fruitful

01:16:15.260 and multiply and to spread out and fill the earth and subdue it.

01:16:18.060 They say, if we do this, not only will we make a name for ourselves and ascend to heaven

01:16:21.660 and be on par with God, but we will let us make a name for ourselves so that we will

01:16:26.620 not be scattered over the face of the earth, aka so that we will not fulfill the very command

01:16:31.460 that God has given us, which was to spread out and to fill the earth. And God's mercy,

01:16:35.840 it is a judgment for their sin of arrogance, but it's also a mercy of them trying to not obey God. 0.91

01:16:42.860 And the judgment at Babel is God working as a catalyst to really just not to put man 0.88

01:16:51.260 now on some track that was never the intended good or purpose, but it's actually as a catalyst,

01:16:58.300 man had gotten off track because of sin and God now in a catalytic way puts him back on track of

01:17:06.740 spreading out over the face of the earth and then naturally out of that comes certain distinct

01:17:11.300 distinctions and and cultural distinctions and uh you know and and that's um and that's a good

01:17:18.100 that that is a natural good and the other thing about that story people i don't think you'll pick

01:17:22.880 up on it's like they they could they could achieve their their project even though it was like it was

01:17:29.700 sinful in orientation they could achieve that precisely because they were the same people

01:17:34.660 like they spoke the same language right like you could achieve great projects i mean they're they

01:17:39.700 use greatness to evil ends but you can use you can achieve greatness to good ends and how do you do

01:17:45.200 that well you have to be able to speak each other's language perfectly i know it turns out that like

01:17:48.940 Once no one speaks the same language, you can't actually fulfill and achieve the same project.

01:17:53.720 So if you have this, if you essentially recreate the post-judgment babble in America, well, sorry, we're not actually going to achieve any sort of natural greatness for good.

01:18:05.960 National, yeah.

01:18:06.720 So the story itself should communicate to us that you need to have similarity in order to achieve anything great.

01:18:13.920 Amen.

01:18:14.240 And without it, you actually can't.

01:18:15.480 One last biblical example for, for the listeners, because I am after all a pastor. And so I, you

01:18:22.980 know, but one, one other biblical example that I, I'm, I'm sure, you know, you've used a million

01:18:27.900 times, but just thinking of the apostle Paul, um, there's a, you know, an order of loves,

01:18:33.320 you know, uh, there, there's a hierarchy and prioritization of commitments and affections.

01:18:38.940 And, uh, you know, Paul doesn't say, Hey, for the Cretans, I'd be willing to go to hell. Um,

01:18:43.720 But he says for his own people, Romans 9, you know, for my own kin, my own, you know,

01:18:50.320 kinsmen according to the flesh, I would be willing to be cut off from the riches and

01:18:54.340 the mercies of God if it might somehow reconcile them, save them.

01:18:58.800 And then, you know, back to like benefits, right?

01:19:01.040 Like, so like physical training is not ultimate value, but it's not no value, it's some value.

01:19:05.400 Well, then he talks about, you know, the value of heritage and ancestry, you know, and particularly

01:19:10.020 of the Jewish sort. 0.63

01:19:11.860 And he says, you know, well, you know, if salvation is for the Gentiles and for the Jews, and it's not, you know, it's according to the promise and not according to the flesh, then of what benefit is there in being a Jew? 0.80

01:19:21.380 And you would expect him to say, like, it feels like he's building it all up to say, none, you know, boomers for the win, and, you know, race doesn't exist. 0.64

01:19:29.060 But he doesn't say that. 0.76

01:19:30.220 He says, well, actually, what benefit is there in being a Jew, even though you can be saved as a Gentile and co-heirs of grace and all that? 0.69

01:19:38.240 Well, there's still much in every way. 0.80

01:19:40.360 there's a benefit in being a jew for theirs is the law and theirs is the prophets and and so then i

01:19:44.840 think of that like in an anglo sense you know like well if if um you know the the white race is you

01:19:52.560 know not superior and and doesn't have any special promises or you know christianity 2.0 or you know 0.66

01:19:59.680 we can get salvation you know not just salvation but salvation you know twice we can be saved

01:20:04.880 three times or you know if there's none of that in the eternal spiritual truest ultimate sense

01:20:09.640 well then of what advantage is there and being you know of european descent and i feel like i

01:20:14.760 could answer that much in the way scripture does paul doesn't say well much in every way uh for

01:20:19.620 theirs are the reformers theirs are the puritans that there is a like paul says here are the

01:20:24.640 prophets and and here is the law in our history and even though currently we've rejected that

01:20:30.840 history by you know the jews rejecting the prophets killing the prophets and then you know

01:20:35.240 killing christ and yet still um that's part of our story and it's a good story it's a great story

01:20:42.080 that the prophets are in our lineage and i think for the european to say um that you know that

01:20:48.320 calvin you know and and luther and you know that the the reformers and the puritans are in that

01:20:54.420 european lineage and to identify with that and to be proud of that um and not a sinful pride but but

01:21:02.260 a good sense of pride these are my people this is my history um and and i just don't think it's a

01:21:08.500 coincidence that all that can be defended biblically without being sinfully racist um but the whole

01:21:16.040 world including much of the church right now wants to demonize that and wants to get particularly

01:21:22.580 young straight white men to hate their ancestors to to absolutely disobey the fifth commandment

01:21:31.060 to hate their fathers and to hate their mothers and to hate their heritage and when somebody's 0.82

01:21:36.760 trying to get you to hate something and like oh it's really bad it's so so bad why is it bad i

01:21:41.260 can't really you know i can't really back up with substance my argument but it's so bad you should

01:21:44.980 hate it and it's terrible that like that just that makes me pause i'm like i don't think i will hate

01:21:51.060 this no i don't think i will you know uh so that i don't know and i think a lot of young men right

01:21:56.560 now are waking up. And my concern, not to be a concern, bro, but my concern is that there's just

01:22:03.920 not a lot of good older Christian men in that space to say, you're waking up? Good. You're

01:22:12.400 right. This is evil. You should hate this. You should hate it. And here's how to hate it well.

01:22:18.680 Instead, you've got all these guys, pastors in the church saying, oh, you shouldn't be angry at all.

01:22:24.720 and you know like uh why are you so mad and um are you just jealous and and and and and then

01:22:32.080 we're shocked when they like flock to nick fuentes or somebody you know like because there's no

01:22:37.420 reasonable right on on this particular issue especially within you know pastors in the

01:22:42.580 evangelical church so i'm i'm trying by the grace of god to maybe be a reasonable right you know in

01:22:48.520 the you're doing it you know as an author and politically and these kinds of and i'm i'm trying

01:22:52.880 to you know maybe i can be one of the few pastors um that's that doesn't have the you know the race

01:22:58.540 brain and the you know the boomer mentality so yeah i i mean uh what what i've said before is

01:23:05.920 that we we tend to be like we tend to view the the western world as this very universal human thing

01:23:11.940 so any and all can be a part of it um and yet we we are we're also cast as the villains of it

01:23:18.580 so if you take american history um the history we want to say is the march of progress and freedom

01:23:25.160 but like who's being marched over or who's the loser in that narrative it's it's the white male

01:23:30.860 and so essentially the church and the left everyone's basically saying that we have this

01:23:36.600 progressive narrative of history um and uh and and yet of course we have to cast ourselves as a

01:23:42.340 villain so it's not surprising again that again people would young men who said wait i don't i'm

01:23:47.160 i don't want to be a villain i don't want to go through my life as this like self-hating white guy

01:23:50.700 right um they go to the people who are telling them that no you don't have to be a self-hating

01:23:54.960 white guy which is you and i are one of those people right um and we're attacked relentlessly 0.51

01:23:59.040 for for for denying that you have to be a self-hating white guy uh but on the thing of

01:24:05.260 being proud of of your history and to be european the way i i look at it is like you look at the the 0.91

01:24:10.840 sort of books look at the works that like that are part of your heritage that you've inherited

01:24:15.620 um as being someone who's not only american but america as rooted in the old world i mean

01:24:22.520 everything from shakespeare and then political truth political tradition you have uh you know

01:24:27.660 everyone from from john locke to the scottish uh the scottish enlightenment all these different

01:24:33.920 works that um are that reflect uh a a discourse and discussion that's gone over for through

01:24:41.800 centuries that started and apart from reading the ancient greeks and and the romans and how came to

01:24:48.280 expression in different places in europe all of that is part of your inheritance and they are

01:24:53.960 good so they are objectively good in themselves but there are they're also yours i think we should

01:25:00.000 get away from this idea that you have this that that the the great books of the western tradition

01:25:05.780 they're in and some are out simply for objective universal human merit um of course they all have

01:25:14.100 merit but we should also say they're in there because they are distinctly ours you know right

01:25:19.460 they are our our great books our works that we that when we talk about politics as a westerner

01:25:27.160 we reference adam smith we reference john locke we reference john calvin or thomas aquinas

01:25:33.560 um you know because they are part of the broad discussion of our tradition and that's why it

01:25:39.980 would be weird to to cite you typically some kind of sort of chinese author it would be make a lot

01:25:45.380 of sense for a some like a someone in china to cite uh to cite a chinese author when it comes

01:25:53.320 to their political tradition um and perhaps at times it would make sense for us as well but for

01:25:58.080 the most part if we're talking about the art of war maybe we'll cite you know what's that i was

01:26:03.460 saying if we're talking about uh fighting in the art of war then that's yeah that's the only time

01:26:07.760 i hear that yeah certainly there's like some crossover no yeah absolutely but but i mean just

01:26:13.080 in general in general when when someone cites aquinas or they cite monasque um they they

01:26:22.100 there's a sense in which there's some authority there even if you disagree there's some seriousness

01:26:28.700 to it um that needs to be contended with right and and that is true because this is our tradition

01:26:36.160 and these are the great books that have arisen in that tradition and should be taken seriously

01:26:40.480 but that'll be different in different places um but but unfortunately either like you go to your

01:26:46.380 class at like your classical christian school or or college and they'll say oh these just have

01:26:51.860 objective human worth and that's why they're in and that's why there's movements to like include

01:26:55.780 international works like non-western or in the canon or in the the curricula because now they're

01:27:02.360 they're following the logic like well why are you excluding these others if it's just objective human

01:27:07.580 merit and not something about inheritance but we need to get back to saying no art no like this is

01:27:13.320 this is ours because they're not as good see i would say i you know i this is controversial but

01:27:19.240 i would say it's both i would say uh the great tradition western tradition is um is of immense

01:27:24.780 value because one it's ours everything you're saying it's ours um also uh what's ours is also

01:27:30.740 best and and i believe that and i think part of the reason i believe that is because c.a it's ours

01:27:36.820 and i i'm a descendant of this tradition so naturally of course i i think it's best um so i

01:27:42.940 you know so one it's it's my tradition um but two uh i believe that my tradition is the best

01:27:49.060 tradition probably in part because it's my tradition so yeah i mean exactly and i don't

01:27:54.800 think there's anything wrong with that um right and even when even when there's there's things

01:27:59.540 that would be kind of like people say well why why do we focus on uh like uh the works from

01:28:05.640 ancient greece when they're so far away from england and there's an argument there but the

01:28:10.060 fact of the matter is everyone read aristotle everyone read plato and so how can you understand

01:28:15.160 your own even like from scottish to to anglo to english to french to italian spanish how can you

01:28:23.900 even understand what they're saying if you haven't read aristotle's ethics or his politics or um you

01:28:30.580 know plato's republic so uh but yeah yeah so so um affirm your tradition love it and don't don't

01:28:39.540 let someone say that it's don't don't let them villainize you for saying this is we love it

01:28:45.720 because it's ours and it's an inheritance yeah don't like don't let the uh the bug eating pod

01:28:52.880 living regime uh yeah convince you to disobey god and the fifth commandment and hate your father 0.91

01:29:01.480 and mother that's a sin we that that's a sin so steven thanks for your work and uh thank you for

01:29:07.680 being willing in a lot of ways to kind of uh be a bit of a trailblazer i mean none of it's really

01:29:14.080 new if in the big picture of going back to dead guys you know um but uh but in our particular

01:29:19.680 moment in time sadly we've gotten so far off the rails that uh the things that you've been saying

01:29:25.120 uh to a lot of you know people today uh are heard as though they're completely novel and nobody has

01:29:31.440 ever had the unmitigated goal to say such a thing you know before and and yet um you seem perfectly

01:29:37.440 content to say those things stick to your guns not back down and then you know and then in your

01:29:43.880 free time uh go hang out with your kids on your farm and play with goats and uh it's great i mean

01:29:50.240 your ministry and the way that the lord's using you is great because it's um you're providing the

01:29:55.120 cover fire for for guys like me and some of the guys in the pulpit pastors and we need like you

01:30:00.260 said more than pastors but you as a non-pastor and being in a little bit less of a cancelable

01:30:06.040 position. Um, you're using, you're, you're utilizing that, um, that position well and

01:30:12.320 providing some cover fire. And I hope that more pastors will wake up and see, uh, the cover fire

01:30:17.880 you're providing and the trail that you're blazing and take advantage of it instead of, uh, just

01:30:23.020 turning on you and lobbing grenades. Um, but I, I, I don't know. I don't know if you feel this way,

01:30:28.180 but as a bystander looking in, it does feel hopeful that, you know, that the tide is turning

01:30:34.360 a little bit. Do you feel that way? Yeah, I think absolutely. Especially among the younger

01:30:39.880 generations. I think there's some dangers among the younger guys, I think, because they're so

01:30:43.820 unmoored from a lot of things. But there's also a lot of opportunity that they can break out of

01:30:52.240 some of the ideology that you see in the older generations. But yeah, I mean, I appreciate what

01:30:58.300 you have to say, and I try my best. I do, in the spirit of the fifth commandment, I do have to

01:31:02.760 credit my father for, um, make, for leading me on the, the path to, um, become the sort of thinker

01:31:11.520 I am today. So I give credit, a lot of credit to him for that. Praise God. All right. Uh, last

01:31:17.300 thing, how, how can people follow you? Uh, any, any projects on the horizon? Boy, I do have an

01:31:22.720 event in, uh, are you, I don't know. Yeah. In Texas. Yeah. It's like the, the, the blue, the

01:31:27.480 true texas conference it's in dallas okay um cj angle is going to be there cool else is going to

01:31:33.340 be there um i like cj yeah that's in uh yeah and paul gottfried so we're speaking of that

01:31:38.280 already got media inquiries about how you know you know there's there's nefarious people there

01:31:43.000 wolf are you you sure you want to associate with those people um but uh i didn't reply back of

01:31:49.240 course but um i usually mess with the journalists a little bit i i try like i demand that they call

01:31:55.180 me dr wolf and all sorts of things uh it's kind of fun um but dr jill biden if she can demand then

01:32:01.980 i think yeah right you're good yeah um yeah oh so also twitter you'll see me it's uh i won't try to

01:32:08.760 give you my twitter handle but you know you'll see me i'm the guy with 20 000 followers um and

01:32:13.700 that's that's about it but yeah i have articles american reformer the my speech or talk at the

01:32:19.760 ogden event will be published there right it's on patreon now if you're a club member on on their

01:32:24.800 patreon new chrysidham uh new chrysidham press.com slash patreon or something um but it will be

01:32:32.960 available to the public and then lastly though uh you uh you're starting your own youtube channel

01:32:38.780 right you want to plug that yeah i'm trying to do that more uh trying to improve you know all

01:32:43.300 around quality and all that but yeah it said yeah you'll find me there um i think it's like sm wolf

01:32:48.140 i think it's for steven wolf maybe okay um i don't know i don't know youtube as well just google

01:32:53.440 steven wolf on youtube i'm sure yeah you'll find me um and uh yeah you can see me there as well

01:32:58.900 yeah i'm trying to i'm trying to do more of those videos great well thanks for your work

01:33:02.640 and uh thanks for coming on the show today appreciate it

The NXR Podcast - September 30, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - No, Diversity Is Not Our Strength with Stephen Wolfe - ICYMI

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