The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW ｜ The Blessings Of An American Monoculture ｜ Anglo Protestant with Stephen Wolfe

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

00:00:55.200 ethnicities and all these things that we find in scripture. That's the episode. And Dr. Stephen

00:01:00.740 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

00:01:12.240 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.

00:01:25.200 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host,

00:01:31.000 Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I'm privileged to welcome to

00:01:35.400 the show, Stephen Wolfe, Dr. Stephen Wolfe. He's not a pastor. Praise God, we need pastors,

00:01:41.840 but we don't need everyone to be a pastor. And so he's doing what God's called him to do.

00:01:46.380 He is also the author, you probably recognize his name. He's the author of The Case for

00:01:50.800 Christian nationalism. And Stephen and I just recently were able to have the privilege of

00:01:55.820 speaking at the New Christendom conference with the Ogden boys. That's Brian Sauve and Eric Kahn,

00:02:01.200 Dan Burkholder, and Ben Garrett. That was a blessing. And one of the talks at the conference

00:02:06.980 that Stephen presented for us was on multiculturalism, arguing that, well, that

00:02:12.540 diversity is not our strength, but the type of diversity in view might surprise you. And I think

00:02:17.880 it's worth fleshing out. So Stephen, can you give us maybe a recap of that talk that you presented?

00:02:25.640 Yeah, yeah. So yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah, so what I was trying to address was

00:02:31.460 several things. One was whether or not multiculturalism is actually a good thing, 0.96

00:02:37.060 not only theoretically, but actually in effect. So like in the world, is there any indicator

00:02:43.500 through social science and research that multiculturalism is actually good for 0.97

00:02:48.260 society um and in every society it's actually bad uh this it's one of the funny things actually

00:02:54.400 liberals uh liberal and leftist researchers who have really tried to prove that multiculturalism

00:03:00.880 is good um have actually demonstrated and been honest about it that it's actually bad there's

00:03:06.460 been there's been actually researchers who've done research on social trust around the country

00:03:10.800 around the world and they sat on the on the research because they they got the data they're

00:03:15.860 expecting to show this great you know result of multiculturalism is great and britches and it's 0.88

00:03:21.200 it's magical and all that um but then in the end it actually shows that it's not good and so they 0.99

00:03:27.020 sit on it for like five six years until they just found well we got to get it out there so they

00:03:32.500 published it and it shows that essentially um a diverse ethically and culturally diverse

00:03:40.900 countries actually have very low social trust um even down to the local uh local level um and

00:03:47.560 there's 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 in the workplace actually doesn't add any

00:03:57.980 benefit despite the propaganda um in that area from businesses to the military is just not shown

00:04:05.860 to actually increase effectiveness so i i wanted i talked about that i mentioned i i uh discussed

00:04:12.420 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 british

00:05:30.620 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

00:05:45.400 like political uh political thought we think of these very universal ideas of all men are created

00:05:51.960 equal you know they have natural rights so these things are universal if natural rights are natural

00:05:57.560 that means that each human being has these rights and so we've taken that recently in the last i'd

00:06:04.300 say 50 years to say essentially that's all it means to american is to affirm the propositions

00:06:09.300 but the founders and i would say well into the 19th century even into the early 20th century

00:06:13.840 Even past World War II, I'd say, the predominant thinking was that there's a cultural particularity, a people that undergird those, affirming those propositions.

00:06:27.040 So to believe in natural rights, to believe in sort of American liberty, to believe in religious liberty as the kind of Anglo tradition affirms it, to believe in equality, those sorts of ideas stem and are supported by a cultural particularity that people have identified as Anglo-Protestant.

00:06:48.420 So it's both rooted in English, but also it's a, it's the product of a Protestant tradition that I'm sure we can get to. But that's what I was trying to get at is actually, okay, multiculturalism is bad. And oh, by the way, we as Americans are not committed to multiculturalism in principle. 0.93

00:07:07.440 We are actually committed to the idea that we have a people and we have a place and we have ideas that are associated with those people.

00:07:17.800 And we cannot expect everyone around the world who are not part of that political, that essentially Western civilization, but even kind of people who are not Western European to affirm those ideas, at least not readily.

00:07:36.320 So they, they can't just show up to America and all of a sudden they affirm the propositions and then they're, they're exactly one of us as historically understood. So we're not actually historically committed to that as good Americans.

00:07:48.160 um and i i mean yeah and so that that's kind of the over the that's what i'm saying is that we

00:07:54.400 actually should as americans say there is a core ethnicity or there is a core culture

00:08:00.220 that is an open culture meaning that people can assimilate into it so it's not bound by

00:08:06.780 perfect genetic markers as if you're this sort of you know if you're too if you're too german

00:08:11.820 you're out that's not that's not the um the principle nevertheless it is uh there is a core

00:08:18.460 way of life um a core heritage to which newcomers should conform and that is necessary to maintain

00:08:29.580 our old american principles so all those principles that the old people the older

00:08:34.140 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 referred to it as um so basically your talk in a nutshell was uh multiculturalism is not our strength

00:09:05.800 that America from its founding, that was not the intent, but it was meant to be a monoculture.

00:09:13.860 And then you went on to say, okay, so which one is it? Which culture? And you describe that as

00:09:19.040 Anglo-Protestant. So could you take just a moment and maybe taking those two words and breaking each

00:09:24.760 of them down? What do you mean by Protestant? And what do you mean by Anglo? Do Catholics have a

00:09:30.060 place and do people who aren't white have a place what does it mean anglo-protestant culture

00:09:35.840 yeah so it has a it's it's rooted in a british uh intellectual uh political tradition

00:09:44.300 so uh this is explicitly affirmed by the founders so if you look at the continental congress in

00:09:50.320 1774 uh 75 76 you'll you'll see them regularly appeal to their britishness and they are actually

00:09:57.980 asserting their rights as englishmen so they they're they're self-consciously knew they were

00:10:03.320 part of a tradition extending to the magna carta all the way back to the the saxon kings of the

00:10:08.800 ninth century and eighth century um so there was a self-conscious britishness to the founders

00:10:15.380 uh and it's from a legal tradition or not just well not just legal but also a political tradition

00:10:22.380 that you can see reflected uh everything from uh from from fortescue fortescue on law getting back

00:10:30.240 to the magna carta which is regular appeal regularly appealed to by people like samuel adams

00:10:34.040 um you can see this through uh some expressions through john locke and also religious liberty as

00:10:39.900 well so uh and this this ties to the protestantism uh the reason why we as protestants can affirm

00:10:48.240 religious liberty is not this sort of, okay, I guess we'll tolerate you guys, you Baptists.

00:10:54.260 We're Congregationalists and Presbyterians. I guess we can tolerate you guys even though

00:10:58.380 we think you're heathen. That was actually not the Protestant tradition, but within the Anglo world,

00:11:04.960 there was a steady recognition that we as fellow Protestants can get along without wanting to

00:11:14.120 uh suppress each other and this is even you can see this even in new england in the 17th century

00:11:19.480 where they did actually say baptists look you can be part of our churches

00:11:23.080 you can be in our churches um our congregationalist church you just can't have your own

00:11:27.080 so you see this in 30 in the 1630s 40s 50s 60s uh but baptists of course one of their own churches 0.99

00:11:33.720 uh but so eventually you see this in the 17 teens that cotton mather is now ordaining a baptist uh

00:11:41.320 in there in a baptist church so there is a development where they see okay look we've

00:11:47.400 always affirmed that that that a baptist can have the same faith as us in themselves they

00:11:54.360 could be true christians and that's why we let them in our churches but now we've realized hey

00:11:58.280 we can actually form a civil polity a civil society where we tolerate one another and we

00:12:05.720 affirm each other's mutual protestantism and each other's mutual faith that we disagree on things

00:12:10.280 And that's all, again, I mean, this is, New England was a few decades later where England

00:12:16.160 recognized this earlier in the 1600s.

00:12:19.220 But this is all just like our Anglo-Protestant tradition.

00:12:22.420 And so when you get to the founding and we talk about religious liberty, this is not

00:12:26.380 like the Enlightenment showing up.

00:12:28.580 It's not like all of a sudden they read John Locke and like, oh, my dogmatic slumber, I

00:12:32.900 finally woke out of that.

00:12:34.460 No, it was a progress into it.

00:12:36.320 And the First Amendment actually is an expression of a long Anglo-Protestant tradition of experience, or it was the experience with each other that then developed into the First Amendment, saying we can form a civil union despite theological differences.

00:12:52.640 And that's what is expressed in the First Amendment.

00:12:55.320 And so that's the Anglo-Protestant tradition.

00:12:57.120 It's rooted in Protestantism, which says, so like Roman Catholicism, you have a ecclesiastical earthly head of the church, namely the Pope.

00:13:05.140 and to be in to be in you have to be aligned institutionally right that's not true in

00:13:11.720 protestantism this is this is why you could you could have the calvinist at least appealing to

00:13:17.200 the lutherans and saying lutherans we think your brothers and lutherans just like scoff at us but

00:13:20.820 but you know or the same thing with like presbyterians and baptists and congregationals

00:13:25.260 and baptists and anglicans anglicans and presbyterians we could all affirm each other's

00:13:30.800 mutual faith because we do not believe that you have to be aligned with an institution

00:13:35.520 uh a a singular institution um to be in um and so for that reason you can have principled

00:13:43.660 religious liberty that as i said affirms each other's mutual faith and that was developed

00:13:49.160 within the anglos the anglo world right which comes to expression and comes to i think uh it's

00:13:55.240 its ultimate expression is 19th century in america where eventually you have disestablishment

00:14:02.460 like i think the the last the last uh quasi establishment is goes disestablished in the

00:14:08.080 1830s in one of the states but then you still have flourishing and high religiosity

00:14:12.840 and this is what toqueville shows up the united states and he looks around and says wow you guys

00:14:17.760 don't have establishment and you have all this high religiosity everyone cares intensely about

00:14:21.540 religion and people are attending church and and uh anyone who's an atheist has to remain

00:14:27.320 silent about it because it would if it would there's a high social cost uh and they get and

00:14:32.460 so it's it it it so it came to this expression with the 19th century that we've lost of course

00:14:37.740 but uh anyway i mean there's a lot to say about angle protestantism with the work ethic uh and

00:14:43.860 a sense of ordered liberty that comes without a heavy-handed order that's one of the again that's

00:14:50.640 one of the unique things about the American tradition is we can have high liberty with

00:14:55.840 also high order without a kind of magistrate threatening, constantly threatening to put us

00:15:03.520 into order. Right Response Ministries 2025 conference is a go. This is three days,

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00:16:15.260 will not last long. Right. No, that's really helpful. Part of that is just the belief of

00:16:22.200 self-governing men, which unfortunately, I think we've lost a lot of that with our current

00:16:29.200 population, that men must be governed. And if they won't govern themselves, then you might need

00:16:35.780 a heavy hand in America, which isn't really conducive to our founding and the American

00:16:42.640 project um but sadly our population has slipped i have two questions so one well on that if i can

00:16:48.560 comment on that yeah go ahead i think that's really important to point out so again we have

00:16:52.920 this it's overly universalistic conception of of our our way of life uh and so whenever when

00:17:00.240 everyone someone like mentions like protestant franco or they mentioned right uh the old the

00:17:06.000 old the old you know classical conception of a dictator all that people freak out um but they

00:17:11.860 don't realize that again our american principles were designed for people who could self who could

00:17:18.720 govern themselves um who could have ordered liberty without a heavy-handed with heavy-handed law we

00:17:25.580 don't have those people and anymore and and we don't yeah and we no longer have that uh and it's

00:17:31.280 again is undergirded by an anglo-protestant culture and so a lot of people on the right 0.51

00:17:36.300 are saying well look you'll get our look at the the country now and it's it's foolish to try to

00:17:42.440 continue these like these this idea of ordered liberty with self-government if you don't have

00:17:47.740 the people for that right like we would all love to go back to times where we could have ordered

00:17:52.600 liberty but we can't we can't have that anymore because it's that was undergirded by a particular

00:17:58.260 core people right um and once those people are gone once that particularity and that culture

00:18:04.420 is gone then well guess what you now men must be governed meaning that like now you need the heavy

00:18:10.060 hand of law and this is like this like burke has a great line which i wish i could quote right now

00:18:14.500 but it's essentially that people people who can't self-govern are have to be controlled by a heavy

00:18:20.460 hand of government you talk about the french revolution um which back then a lot of people

00:18:25.360 thought that the french could not actually govern that they didn't they uh a lot of even french

00:18:30.880 themselves recognize that they didn't have a tradition of liberty like the anglos did and so

00:18:37.100 you get the french revolution people are predicting that it's just going to be a disaster which is

00:18:40.680 exactly what happened because they didn't have they had a tradition of of uh royal absolutism

00:18:45.780 right whereas the this is what monescue is praising in the mid 18 1700s he's saying look

00:18:52.240 i'm french but the model is england um and then you get to the late 1780s and you have the french

00:18:58.780 revolution and you have like i said my talk like guvner morris who was a founding father is saying

00:19:03.780 look like these people these frenchmen don't know liberty it's going to take time right um so again

00:19:08.820 the point is like you can have a you can list the universal abstract rights all day long and people 0.95

00:19:14.040 could say yay cheer on the lawn but if you don't have if you're not part of a a people whose

00:19:19.060 whose experience and tradition and culture can can govern themselves can actually bring about

00:19:27.120 order to liberty then it's not going to work and that's that's the state we're in now right yeah

00:19:31.420 systems i'm i'm with you systems of government i think have to fit the people and so you know this

00:19:37.360 we've talked a little bit like i i am happy and unashamed to wear the moniker of a general equity

00:19:43.340 theonomist uh meaning that i don't have you know i would remain i reserve some distinctions from

00:19:49.600 some of the og reconstructionist although i appreciate rush dooney and a lot of what he

00:19:54.520 said, and Bonson, but I would be distinct from them, and I would kind of give that disclaimer

00:19:58.400 of general equity, lowercase t, theonomist. But what I'm saying is that sometimes the OG,

00:20:05.460 you know, hardcore capital T, theonomist, Reconstructionist, not only do they say,

00:20:10.060 well, you know, the general equity of the civil codes given to Israel, these things need to be,

00:20:15.360 you know, they need to be legislated in governments and in all places and all times,

00:20:20.720 but sometimes they'll go even further than that and say that the Bible actually prescribes

00:20:24.780 not just laws, but a particular form of government. And I would reserve that. I do think there are

00:20:31.460 some basic principles in terms of not just laws, but forms of government, representative government.

00:20:36.580 I think of Deuteronomy 18, you know, and there's, you know, guys over, you know, Jethro, the father

00:20:41.360 in law of Moses over tens and fifties and hundreds and thousands. One thing that I will point out

00:20:47.440 with that is a lot of guys will say, you know, we shouldn't vote for Trump because he doesn't,

00:20:52.120 you know, it's a low bar. We're not saying he has to be a perfect Christian or a Calvinist or this,

00:20:56.000 that, and the other. But he's got to meet at least this, you know, this gracious standard that God

00:21:00.020 put forth through Jethro, you know, to Moses and Deuteronomy 18. But I would say, which is you

00:21:05.720 love justice, you don't take a bribe, those kinds of things. You could not even be regenerate and

00:21:10.200 still meet the standard. And so that should be the standard for our elected officials, you know,

00:21:14.840 and the president would be one of those. And I would push back on that and just say, number one,

00:21:18.840 that's the standard given to Moses to appoint these men. That's different than in our two-party

00:21:24.840 system. Once we've gone through the primaries and all these things, and we have two candidates

00:21:28.560 before us, right? Politics is the realm of the possible. There's two candidates that can actually

00:21:33.100 win. And neither of them, you know, meet this Deuteronomy 18 standard. And it's not Moses.

00:21:41.120 it's not a prophet monarch type figure from on high who gets to pick down. It's all the people

00:21:48.460 at the bottom picking up, choosing up. And one of them will be chosen. There will be, you know,

00:21:54.640 it's not going to be, hey, well, I guess we just don't have a president this year because nobody

00:21:57.720 meets the standard. No, you're going to have one. And so that's why I think the lesser of two evils

00:22:02.320 comes into play in Deuteronomy 18, which I think is a great ideal standard. I think it's very

00:22:08.220 different in that being a standard for Moses as a monarch type figure to choose and select down

00:22:14.780 than for us, you know, in a representative democracy type thing, the people to choose

00:22:20.300 up. So all that being said, my point is, yes, there are some principles you can glean, I think,

00:22:25.240 from the scripture in the Old Testament, some major principles of, you know, forms, not just

00:22:30.600 laws, but forms of government like representative government. That said, I like republics. I think

00:22:37.820 republics are ideal. Um, but as Benjamin Franklin allegedly said, you know, you know, what did you

00:22:42.940 give us a republic? If there's a condition you can keep it. And I think the, you know, the jury

00:22:48.160 has come back in the verdict is here. Uh, we did not keep it. And, um, and I don't think that we

00:22:53.540 currently have, and this is unfortunate. I'm not happy about it, but I don't think we currently

00:22:57.900 have, uh, the quality of people required in order to sustain a republic. So, so this whole, you

00:23:05.140 Protestant Franco or monarchy or whatever. None of these things, I don't know anybody on the right

00:23:11.820 or dissident right or whatever you want to call it, New Christodom, whatever. I don't know anybody

00:23:16.140 who's giddy about it and saying, yes, this is what we've always wanted. We never wanted a republic.

00:23:21.260 We've always wanted a king. I don't hear that. I hear people saying, you know what, it's just time

00:23:27.780 not to make something happen. It's time to simply recognize what already has happened. We need to

00:23:33.520 know where we currently are and not just deal. We can't afford to have this five-year-old idealism.

00:23:40.960 We need to put our big boy pants on, grow up, be an adult, recognize the times, where we currently

00:23:46.140 are, and what our people are currently suited for so that we can get back to the ideal. So I think

00:23:53.680 a representative constitutional republic is still the ideal. I'd love to see us have it,

00:23:58.800 but we don't have it now we have it in pretense but not in practice and i don't think that we're

00:24:04.440 qualified for what do you think yeah i don't think that's a crazy thing right wing watch will pick me

00:24:10.380 up saying these kinds of things you know and like oh my goodness this right wing extremist and i'm

00:24:15.540 like what world do you live in like we don't have a high trust society i can't put um uh fruit in in

00:24:22.280 in a cart on the on the street and a little sign that says take one banana and leave 50 cents and

00:24:27.660 Like you, you, what America do people think we're living in? 1.00

00:24:32.280 Joel, the hysterical women at a right wing watch are losing their minds right now.

00:24:38.760 They need to pop some more pills, but, but yeah, no, I mean, it's just a, it's a, it's

00:24:44.680 a, one of the most basic, I mean, you pick up any, pretty much any text in the Western

00:24:50.260 political canon going all the way back to Plato's Republic and it's you'll see different

00:24:56.160 regime types and uh and the regime some of the regime types take on their own character and they

00:25:03.900 shape the way that people think but also they just the reason why these regime types work so

00:25:09.420 regime types usually like you know king or aristocracy um or sort of democracy and there's

00:25:15.300 others but that's a basic idea like why do you have these different regime types and it's because

00:25:20.800 well this one this particular type is actually more suited to the people than another type

00:25:26.860 and this is this is not just some pagan saying this i even i found this once in uh pagans or

00:25:33.260 pagan uh calvin's uh calvin's commentaries and of course it's among the founders and everyone

00:25:39.340 affirmed this uh and it's it's the idea that you the form that that uh that not every form

00:25:47.760 fits with every sort of person or people and that some people can be at one point a king would best

00:25:54.880 suit them and then the few generations later an aristocracy or democracy or whatever would best

00:26:01.720 suit them or you know a republic is probably better to say than a democracy right and this

00:26:06.500 is just basic stuff uh it's really just as as time and kind would say it's just basic stuff

00:26:11.200 in the tradition uh and and we we should recognize that so if we move away if as a people we move

00:26:18.820 away such that the form of government is not actually producing good i mean that's the purpose

00:26:24.740 right so this is when people think people have to realize is that the form of government this

00:26:28.920 also includes laws um customs everything if if if none of that if that together is not actually

00:26:36.040 producing good then something's wrong and and it needs to be changed like it's it's it's a

00:26:41.660 the form of government is good only insofar that actually produces good if there's something

00:26:47.160 unsuitable about it or ill-suited for the people and it produces their bad well then something

00:26:53.000 needs to change but the purpose of the system is what it does not not what particular label is

00:26:58.600 assigned to it well this is public education okay but what does it actually accomplish oh well it

00:27:04.080 trains kids and indoctrinates them to be gay and communist the purpose of the system is what it 0.66

00:27:09.400 actually does yeah and also it's not it's not just good in itself absolutely so if you take 0.76

00:27:16.200 like just take our constitution our constitution is is good as a sort of wise document for the

00:27:21.820 people that it governed initially but the question is is it is it absolutely good such that um even

00:27:30.000 if it ends up not working for people you have to retain it same thing with republic or like just

00:27:35.400 just saying everything has to be a republican form of government or has to be a democracy

00:27:39.320 um is really treating the form as the end in itself right but no one in no one in history

00:27:45.840 i mean this this is like again why we're weird no one in history has affirmed that the form of

00:27:52.140 government is an absolute absolute necessity even if it doesn't suit the people right so again this

00:27:59.780 is just that the founders thought that the our system of government was well suited for a people

00:28:06.400 of self-government and an order of liberty right they and if it was a different group of people

00:28:13.580 they would have produced a different document uh right so we can't have this absolutist

00:28:19.300 view of of the form of government now i'm not like saying right now we have to change the form

00:28:24.580 government to be clear but but we just have to get away from that thinking that there is a sort

00:28:30.140 of perfect that there's a there's the perfect is the only thing we can have right um whereas

00:28:35.740 oftentimes as again the tradition and basic stuff the the perfect is the enemy of the good and since

00:28:42.040 that the perfect can actually produce bad because because the people aren't perfect or it's not

00:28:46.100 suited for them they're not ready for it it's just so much of it reminds me of parenting it's like

00:28:50.680 the ideal, the ideal as a father is that, that my children would be self-governed and I would

00:28:59.280 be able to have a high degree of trust with them and be more lax in regards to rules for the

00:29:05.920 household and expectations and that they would just get it done. The problem is that my children

00:29:11.640 are currently six, four, three, and one years old. So that's not, so the ideal, you know, I mean,

00:29:18.760 that's what I'm working towards. We'll get there by God's grace one day. That's what we're working

00:29:23.360 towards. But here's the irony. Putting the ideal into play today, ironically, often ensures that

00:29:35.220 the ideal is never accomplished tomorrow. If you put the ideal, the ideal is not always the means

00:29:43.100 to the ideal. There's usually another means that shapes and forms and prepares a people,

00:29:51.620 whether it be children or whether it be a populace, you know, of a nation. It's usually

00:29:55.840 some other regiment that serves as the training ground that prepares people for the ideal. It's

00:30:02.020 not just ideal from A to Z, it's Z is the ideal and there's other steps along the way. And I think

00:30:09.380 of even the american project you know guys is well this is the best form of government and and i'm

00:30:13.320 even willing to to concede that point say i i i could be wrong i'm fallible but yeah i like it i

00:30:19.500 i like a constitutional republic i think that's great if the people you know are are conducive

00:30:23.960 for that um but but people say you know and that's been our our thing from the beginning it's

00:30:28.940 like okay but these people didn't just grow on trees they weren't hanging in midair they didn't

00:30:32.780 just appear americans didn't just the founders and the covenanters and the you know the pilgrims

00:30:37.800 and the Puritans, they didn't just appear. And that's your point that I find so refreshing and

00:30:42.380 helpful. These aren't people that just grew out of American soil one day and popped into existence.

00:30:48.320 These are people who transitioned from another place and another heritage and a thousand years

00:30:55.600 of history, namely this Anglo-Protestant heritage from Great Britain. And the funny thing is,

00:31:03.140 um what's the thing that prepared for generations these people and their posterity to one day

00:31:09.180 be in america and have this constitutional republic uh what's the thing that prepared

00:31:13.600 them for centuries in england a monarchy isn't that interesting yeah well i mean more than that

00:31:20.440 too it was it was um it was the people's interaction with the monarchy i mean some

00:31:26.860 of the major events in the history of england going back to the magna carta was the the people

00:31:32.540 or the you know the the various powers um having a conflict resolution conflict and then resolution

00:31:39.540 so that's essentially what the magna carta was same thing with the the glorious restoration

00:31:44.080 um in 1680s um and so i mean even the english civil war was essentially a war of course against

00:31:51.360 the king so there there was this tradition of resistance which again is what the uh the

00:31:57.880 founders appealed to so it was monarchy but it was also this interaction with monarchy and so

00:32:04.760 and then and then add to that the the nature of the new world was explicitly from the very beginning

00:32:09.580 you see this reflected in early massachusetts bay colony this like rejection of aristocracy

00:32:14.660 that was rooted in a kind of puritan um puritan religion essentially and uh and so self-government

00:32:23.960 uh minus uh without aristocracy and then you get into the founding where you have a george

00:32:31.040 washington who could have if he wanted to just become the king of america uh and he denied that

00:32:36.820 and they called him mr president um not king or some royal title uh and so there there that

00:32:44.260 uh and with that there was again a development of ordered liberty that didn't need this sort

00:32:50.060 of aristocracy i mean people have said like why why was there why was there so much trouble in

00:32:55.480 france and there was so much trouble in um in germany and in the in the 19th century and a lot

00:33:02.880 of people think it's because of the stability of the monarchy uh and that people could look up

00:33:07.760 this is like a an old what's his name bad badget or bad shot i forget how to say his name but it's

00:33:13.340 an old claim of of of england that the modern people could look to the aristocracy and kind

00:33:18.880 of have a sort of stability and that's what's held england together for so long uh but in america we

00:33:25.320 didn't have the aristocracy but still kind of held together i mean you have the civil war and other

00:33:29.120 things but but generally speaking the idea of ordered liberty existed apart from these uh these

00:33:34.880 these kind of aristocratic figures i mean you have you have andrew jackson's and lincoln's and that

00:33:39.560 sort but but still that that's the that's our tradition um and you you wonder now if we could

00:33:46.160 still have that without a figure this is one reason why i brought up the idea of a christian

00:33:50.140 prince in my book and that was that we need some guy to be a unifier um and but within the

00:33:57.780 tradition the american tradition people think when i say a christian prince they a dictator

00:34:03.080 i'm thinking some sort of like some sort of modern form of dictator right i really in our

00:34:08.560 tradition means someone like george washington right so someone whose own presence he was a tall

00:34:13.780 man he sat in and um in the federal convention debates that produced our our constitution

00:34:19.180 as presiding and he didn't say much but his presence there it added to legitimacy added

00:34:25.520 to the gravity of the event his support for it of course helped he did two terms and then humbly

00:34:30.960 said i'm done right and even decades afterwards people would have a little on their mantle they'd

00:34:37.000 have a little image of george washington as if he was the guy who held the country together he knew

00:34:42.740 it he knew that he was a type of cincinnatus who um he was a sort of as my envision a christian

00:34:49.700 prince who is the embodiment of the people but he also had this again this anglo protestant um

00:34:56.480 humility to say i'm not going to become king or dominate you guys even though i could probably do

00:35:03.380 that i'm going to retire and go go back to the farm uh and he did that and he established that

00:35:09.620 tradition ever since so that's the sort of people person i'm talking about this like the classical

00:35:14.880 notion of someone like cincinnatus leaving his farm to solve the the issues of the day to for

00:35:22.840 the people to then rally around and solve it and then go back and that's the genius of our system

00:35:28.500 or the genius of our tradition the anglo the american anglo-p Protestant tradition

00:35:32.920 is that you have a sense of duty mixed with the type of humility to then exit when you must

00:35:38.760 right um and someone like fdr violated that and all that but um right but uh but you have the

00:35:45.000 george washington's and that's my notion of an american christian prince right no that's good

00:35:51.400 and we still have those systems but the problem is that that's not just like that's not just a

00:35:55.580 form or a system of a guy who comes in and has a humble presence presiding over these things and

00:36:01.100 you know courage and you know all these and and then when he's done he doesn't try to hold on to

00:36:06.660 power, but he lets it go and is content to go back to the farm. That's not just a system. That's a

00:36:11.760 certain type. That's a high caliber man. It's not just the system. It's the person. We don't have

00:36:17.280 those people. Instead, we have boomers who want to take organ donors and AI and live forever 0.84

00:36:29.340 and never let go of power. Meanwhile, they can't control their bowel movements in a public speech 1.00

00:36:36.520 like that i mean that we're nowhere near is the the exact opposite of george washington you know

00:36:41.800 again so at the leader level and then at the people level at the populace in in both regards

00:36:46.580 it seems like one of the major problem is we just don't have the people we don't have that caliber

00:36:50.980 of of man of person um for the current form of government that we have yeah and uh and

00:37:01.260 yeah and unfortunately the the sort of people we have in mind to rise up in the younger 0.98

00:37:09.220 generations are being in a way held back by by the boomers and and others i mean you just see

00:37:14.720 in the church when i when i talk about having you know young men fulfilling their potential 0.70

00:37:20.120 in all aspects of their life not only spiritual not only mental but also physical you see these

00:37:25.920 guys lose their minds as if like oh it's nichian uh you know like me us encouraging people who are

00:37:31.200 20 to maximize the potential of their youth right violates the boomer mentality of you know it's

00:37:37.900 it's as if they they prefer everyone to be fat yeah and weak and like just obey like whatever

00:37:43.580 the the church ladies say um instead of being strong and assertive and physically you know

00:37:49.920 mentally and physically fit uh for for that um to to serve their country and people it's it's like

00:37:56.780 anathema and so it's very unfortunate it's as if they're trying to hold back then prevent the rise

00:38:04.280 of of of a greatness that does tremendous good in the world right it's a i don't like the word

00:38:11.100 gnostic toss but there is a sort of gnosticism there that there's like this there's a spiritualism

00:38:15.560 side so it doesn't matter if you're fat or get trampled on by the church ladies it that's all 0.98

00:38:21.520 kind of good in a sense because you're denying yourself or something it's it's a perversion 0.78

00:38:25.820 and subversion of uh christian truth um and so what we well you know what i'm trying to do what

00:38:31.860 i know you're trying to do and other people is encourage younger people guys who are like i

00:38:35.240 don't know how old you are but i'm 40 41 trying to say hey look like if you're 20 you don't need 0.73

00:38:41.060 to be fat and lazy and weak. You don't need to do that. Like you should, you should seek to do 0.64

00:38:47.580 within the limit, within the limits of your capacities and capabilities, try to maximize

00:38:51.880 yourself in the, I wish that I did that when I was 20 and you get older and you're like, well,

00:38:56.820 yeah, I should have done that. So I'm saying, look, like youth is good, like, and take advantage

00:39:01.680 of it, um, to develop yourself and be the best person you can be. And I think if we have that

00:39:07.540 kind of environmentally of that sort of ethos within the christian world we would have men

00:39:13.540 that are just outstanding and great and and uh not not think that i mean i know you're a pastor

00:39:19.580 but there is there's this thing this is i beat on this like i'm always saying like you gotta stop

00:39:25.540 thinking that like the the pinnacle of greatness is being a being a pastor being a pastor is

00:39:30.600 wonderful it's great it's essential it's like crucial for people's like um uh for the good

00:39:35.940 life to submit to a pastor but at the same time it's not there's other forms of greatness there's

00:39:42.620 greatness in politics there's greatness in athletics and there's there's all sorts of

00:39:47.500 things that you can achieve in a christian life and you can do these other things and most people

00:39:52.080 are best suited for those other things and not being pastor uh and but in the evangelical world

00:39:56.780 it's like you get a job and your job is so that you uh have enough money so you can do your like

00:40:03.260 your international missions trip twice a year yeah anything else you talk about this in your talk

00:40:08.320 it's like people think that everything is purely instrumental for some spiritual end when actually

00:40:13.140 no there's earthly goods here of inheritance of self-development that actually can produce

00:40:18.260 tremendous amounts of good right and those things do serve a spiritual end but the spiritual end is

00:40:24.240 not always global missions it's not always um simply eternal salvation of individual souls

00:40:31.380 There are, it's not just that there are spiritual ends and then there are temporal earthly goods.

00:40:37.720 It's no, there are actually, there's a multitude of different spiritual ends beyond just eternal

00:40:44.880 individual conversion and justification.

00:40:48.440 Even with the gospel, you know, Owen, John Owen talked about how, you know, justification

00:40:53.900 is the heart of the gospel, but it's not the end of the gospel.

00:40:56.680 The end of the gospel is not just being reminded again and again of justification by faith.

00:41:01.380 alone. But the end, purpose, aim of the gospel is not justification, but rather communion with

00:41:08.380 the triune God. That all of this is serving the purpose of being able to eternally belly up to

00:41:15.200 the table, the wedding supper of the lamb and commune and dine and feast and fellowship with

00:41:22.480 the triune God, enjoying fellowship with him forever. And so even in terms of spiritual ends,

00:41:28.700 it's not just conversion it's never less not saying it's something other than or less than

00:41:33.260 but it's more than merely conversion so these temporal goods whether it be physical training

00:41:39.460 which is of some value and that's part of the the problem is that we um yeah we we just we're uh

00:41:46.800 we have this because it's easy it's easy to just say all everything else is of no value this one

00:41:53.020 thing is of ultimate value. Uh, that's actually really easy. Like there's the, um, the old

00:41:57.700 moniker. Uh, I had a friend who had the tattoo and he deeply regrets it, you know, but it said

00:42:02.200 that moderate moderation is for cowards, which is a really foolish saying, you know? So it's 0.95

00:42:07.820 basically like just, you know, pick, pick one or two or three things and go all in and then

00:42:12.720 everything else don't do it at all, which is not, it's not a Christian idea. The Christian idea is,

00:42:18.460 no, there's actually like a thousand things. And they're not necessarily of ultimate value.

00:42:24.180 And there's a triage and some things are more valuable and spiritual things are of eternal

00:42:29.360 value. But it's not as simple as just saying, hey, everything's a distraction, leave it entirely

00:42:34.640 alone, pick these two or three things, give it everything you got. That's actually easier.

00:42:39.940 that appeals, I think, to apathy, a lazy person, a lazy man. But in reality, the actuality is that,

00:42:49.660 no, there's like at any given point in my life, there's probably a thousand things that have

00:42:54.780 varied degrees of value. And I'm expected to weigh through these things with discernment

00:43:00.580 and wisdom and give 30 minutes here and three hours there and 20 minutes. So physical training

00:43:06.860 is not of ultimate value. It's also not of no value. It's of some value, which means I need

00:43:12.200 to give it some time. And that's just one example that the Apostle Paul cites, but I think there

00:43:18.080 are a million different temporal goods that could fall into the some value bucket, that category.

00:43:24.980 And to figure that out and then to give the things of some value, some energy, and some time

00:43:30.900 is a lot of work, which is, I think, why pietism appeals and Gnosticism, you know, appeals because

00:43:39.460 it's easy. It's actually easier. It sounds really good, but it's actually way easier.

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00:46:18.860 Yeah, I mean, one thing is that we tend to treat these goods

00:46:24.140 is kind of like zero sum in the sense that if you're devoting your attention to politics

00:46:28.740 or some issue that you care for well then you must then not be devoting your attention to

00:46:34.440 something that's higher in value and so we kind of have this zero sum mentality and this is where

00:46:39.600 like what we call the jesus juke comes in it's like you really care about this one issue that's

00:46:44.040 kind of more of a temporal thing i guess or earthly thing and then but oh you care like you

00:46:49.380 like you caring about that means you're not caring about these other things like these more spiritual

00:46:53.600 things so it's like a zero-sum mentality and there is a there is a legitimate like concern a pastoral

00:46:59.340 concern like if someone's intense about an issue a good pastor would be like okay look i affirm that

00:47:04.280 you care about this i think it's good you care about this but let's make sure that it's not a

00:47:08.640 distraction from something that's more important so you will say you will you will affirm that it's

00:47:15.340 good that they care about an issue but at the pastoral concern is that make sure it doesn't

00:47:19.520 distract from these other things as well um nevertheless it should never be oh you shouldn't

00:47:24.980 care about this issue intensely because then you can't care about these other things intensely

00:47:29.940 right uh and right and so that that's like the the jesus juke and pastors can do that sometimes

00:47:36.280 they're not thinking clearly um but yeah i think you're absolutely right like you have these there's

00:47:40.480 there's a bunch of different goods out in the world and to to be a complete person is not only

00:47:46.900 to be you know hyper spiritual but it's also to be a good a good father that provides material

00:47:52.820 support for their family i mean that means you have to go outside and work usually and bring

00:47:56.760 home money and then that all that that's that there's a good there that and it's a duty um same

00:48:01.860 thing with duty to your your parents um you know uh and uh and duty to your community to your church

00:48:09.680 to your church and their their material needs there's all sorts of goods that we have to kind

00:48:13.580 to devote our attention to um and to devote one like as i that we become a quasi hermit you know

00:48:19.340 like one of those old those hermits of old where they essentially distance themselves from society

00:48:24.020 to focus on their own particular spiritual like desert fathers or something like that yeah yeah 1.00

00:48:29.500 or they end up neglecting the the completeness of of your duty so you they fulfill the principle

00:48:35.620 but but miss all the secondaries right which then means you fail you fall short um so and so that's

00:48:43.360 that's the problem but yeah i mean um and what i say is like yeah when when you are united to

00:48:50.500 christ you you justify but you're also restored meaning that the things that the things of this

00:48:55.900 life the faculties have been restored in in him such that you can now actually act um as a as

00:49:04.240 intended by by god you know meaning that you can't act perfectly you're not never going to be perfect

00:49:09.400 in this side of life, but you still are regenerated. You still are, in a way, definitively

00:49:15.500 sanctified. And so then what does it mean to be human in this world? It's not only to do spiritual

00:49:21.400 things or to go to church and worship God, it's also to labor, to have a vocation that you do

00:49:28.100 well at and that you do good to others through that vocation, not only directly in the service,

00:49:33.140 but also in acquiring the means to support those who depend upon you. So all those things are just

00:49:38.940 the, so we're restored to do these things. And so they're part of a, part of our duty. And I would

00:49:45.300 say for the one reason, like, well, why do I need to be physically fit? Well, I mean, you don't have

00:49:49.920 to be a bodybuilder, but I mean, to be a bodybuilder takes a tremendous amount of time.

00:49:53.740 And, and so you could actually be doing other things. I'm not saying don't, don't be a body

00:49:57.960 builder, but I'm saying we shouldn't think that we should think that, that if like, if, if you're

00:50:03.620 like a builder, for example, or a construction worker, you can't devote two hours a day to go

00:50:08.060 working out you have to have your your strength to do construction right so right uh the point

00:50:13.660 being that um uh but whatever it is you should be fit such that you can aid and be of service

00:50:19.240 to your neighbor and have the one thing i realized uh when i moved to the south when i moved to

00:50:24.700 louisiana for several years um is that one reason why these guys like have big trucks i mean part

00:50:31.280 of it's a cultural thing but it's also the people like owning trucks because they can be resourceful

00:50:37.120 to others what i found is that whenever i needed some help there were just guys open up oh i got

00:50:42.600 my truck you can borrow it i'll come over and i'll help you with this stuff it's to be useful

00:50:47.100 person to your neighbor for your friends and others to have this this uh this resource um

00:50:53.660 and so that's what i mean like you you be fit and you you have these things in service to others

00:50:59.120 that's why i'm scared to get a truck steven because if i get a truck then i i think people

00:51:04.780 in the church are gonna every saturday ask me to help them move that is true yeah um no that that's

00:51:11.660 really helpful um these are my last two questions and then you you can maybe do your best to answer

00:51:16.320 these and then any concluding thoughts and we can land the plane but uh just for the listener i know

00:51:21.440 what you mean and so i think you know uh yeah i read your book took me a second to figure it out

00:51:26.940 i saw you know your infamous tweet uh that everybody was you know denouncing and like how

00:51:32.380 could you, you know, the lone bulwark tweet. And I, you know, I didn't have, I'll say it publicly.

00:51:37.760 I did not retweet you and say, this is insightful and undeniably true. I also did not retweet you

00:51:46.580 and say, oh my goodness, let me clutch my pearls. I was like, I'm going to let that one, we're not

00:51:52.280 ready for that one. In a couple of years, you know, now time in the province of God has, for the

00:51:57.640 most part, vindicated you. I mean, you've gotten, a lot of people have come around. It's pretty

00:52:01.620 crazy how the overton window has moved so quickly to where something so controversial that never

00:52:06.240 should have been but was um has now people like oh yeah that's not crazy at all that's just the

00:52:11.980 statistics of you know voting patterns and speaking not of individuals but group dynamics and

00:52:16.320 anyway so all that all that being said i know what you mean i read your book i've been watching you

00:52:20.560 online you know we've had a little bit of conversation in person and um and i think i'm

00:52:26.520 just kind of on that same trajectory um theologically and politically and those kinds

00:52:31.040 of things. But for the listener who may not understand some of these things, it was helpful

00:52:38.060 probably for guys in the audience during your talk when towards the end, you said, here are

00:52:42.720 some of my favorite Anglo-Protestants. And you said, well, like Booker T. Washington or Clarence

00:52:47.980 Thomas. And then also, so one, first question, two questions. First question, how is Clarence

00:52:55.540 Thomas, and for the listener, if you don't know, he's a black Supreme Court justice married to a

00:53:00.840 white woman how you know and very conservative and one of the best supreme court justices we

00:53:04.820 have and we're grateful for um but how is he an anglo-protestant and then secondly when you say

00:53:09.680 ethnicity uh you know even in your book you know one of the things that i was able to pick up on

00:53:15.020 i guess a year and a half ago now um but i was like he's using ethnicity the way that dead guys

00:53:20.400 used to use the word um we've boiled we've truncated the word ethnicity to exclusively

00:53:27.040 referring to color pigment shades of you know skin pigment pigment but used to ethnicity it

00:53:35.580 seems as though it had a it was much more encompassing it baked into ethnicity was culture

00:53:41.520 and customs and nationality and that's one of the problems because in the old world you don't it was

00:53:47.780 uncommon in my i maybe i'm wrong but in my perception you didn't have a lot of countries

00:53:53.520 like america japan is japanese you know and and so when you say you know japanese it's like well

00:54:00.520 are you referring to ethnicity or nationality and the answer is yes because it's just it's both and

00:54:06.160 china is the same way and the sudan is the same way and you know and so it's really not until

00:54:10.960 very recently in terms of human history and predominantly in the west and and most you know

00:54:16.580 most blatantly in our country, in America, that we've severed nationality from ethnicity. So

00:54:23.580 ethnicity just means color now, and nationality means citizenship and these kinds of things.

00:54:29.580 So anyways, all that being said, how is Clarence Thomas an Anglo-Protestant? Because we're talking

00:54:33.920 about culture and not just pigment. And then on the pigment topic, what does the word ethnicity

00:54:40.600 mean? How would, how would you advocate for guys, you know, using that word and entailing in it

00:54:46.860 more than just color? Do those questions make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When I, when I

00:54:52.740 chose to write the chapter on the nation, I did use the word ethnicity instead of race and instead

00:55:00.580 of, instead of culture. And the, the reason was, is that, is that culture strikes me as too much

00:55:09.060 like uh like oh we all agree in the same culture at that moment so there's a sort of snapshot in

00:55:14.940 time type mentality like when you think of culture not necessarily um but then race also doesn't work

00:55:21.940 because there's you could have a bunch of like white folks who are actually very different um in

00:55:27.080 terms of their culture and their national so the difference between french and english is just

00:55:31.980 really striking uh or just between hungarian and and english uh would be very striking and different

00:55:37.840 And so it wouldn't make any sense to use race, but ethnicity, the reason why I use it the way I did, which refers to culture, but also ancestry. So I wanted to connect because of course it matters that your people, that you are connected to this place through generations going back.

00:55:58.260 so i of course i'm connected to the united states because my grandfather was in world war ii

00:56:04.140 of course i mean i i am i'm connected because he fought a loved one fought in that in that major

00:56:10.360 that major kind of national struggle or you know my grandparents went through the great depression

00:56:16.800 as kids like these history things the history we learn in the books is not simply the these

00:56:24.060 random things that are these things that happen to these humans i'm now studying on a page

00:56:28.040 it's people who are my ancestors my loved ones um so of course like and your ancestry matters

00:56:34.680 i mean imagine if you i mean everyone or a lot of people have had experience with

00:56:38.800 hey this is my grandparents house or their property and even if they no one even if you

00:56:44.540 don't know who owns it now you'll drive by that and you'll see it and you'll have a sort of

00:56:48.740 affection for it because it embodies the the the life and activity of your grandparents

00:56:55.280 so in napa california my my uh the the wolf side of my family owned the wolf ranch and i remember

00:57:02.980 driving up the driveway to go to christmas parties and seeing aunts and uncles and cousins and having

00:57:08.440 this great time and now it's not owned by the family unfortunately anymore um but uh i still

00:57:15.240 occasionally when i when i'm going back to napa to see grandmother from the other side i drive by

00:57:19.960 and they still have this little wolf up that's called the wolf ranch and the wolf holiness star

00:57:23.940 all that and so there's affection there's an affection there built into memory so of course

00:57:28.320 like that place my dad my dad and his and uncle and grandfather built the house that there with

00:57:34.200 their own hands wow so we don't own it i don't know even know who owns it now um but if that

00:57:39.340 house burned down i would i wouldn't lose anything materially but of course i'd lose something else

00:57:44.820 and so what i'm trying to describe in the book is that something else that there is that that

00:57:50.940 thing that is in a way like emplaced or embodying the place and so of course like your ancestry 0.99

00:57:56.520 matters i mean uh people call that like blood and soil but are you just are you are you dumb i mean 0.99

00:58:03.400 like who like who who who can be so kind of insensitive and lack the affection of seeing 0.99

00:58:11.940 a field or a battlefield or um or some house even a shack that your grandparents or great

00:58:20.740 grandparents lived life in or on or whatever like who can be so unfeeling that they wouldn't

00:58:27.800 have something some connection to that that is beyond property rights or something like that

00:58:33.840 right uh and so yeah that's that's what i was trying to get like so ethnicity

00:58:37.120 is that a rhetorical question because i have an answer boomers boomers is the answer yeah

00:58:41.320 yeah um yeah that's a property right and it's worth this much money and that's all it is

00:58:47.360 no i'm just kidding yeah not all but a lot yeah and to the credit of like our generation i think

00:58:54.020 millennials started to try to recover something um a different mentality on that yeah uh even

00:58:59.820 though we recovered all sorts of bad things too but right uh but yeah so of course it matters and

00:59:04.680 and so um and that means that like it your connection to the american people if you take

00:59:09.780 that broader your connection to the american people and our history does it does matter that

00:59:16.520 your ancestry goes back into that uh and this is why if your people were germans back in 1810

00:59:23.320 i mean you're just as american as anyone else because you have been here interacted and lived

00:59:29.360 with this and you've participated in the major events since you since you got here there's a

00:59:34.340 there's you have an actual connection to the people in the place and you've probably intermarried and

00:59:38.380 all that um and so yeah so it matters but at the same time our my way of ethnicity is not entirely

00:59:47.280 just a ancestral like genetic thing genetics thing and this is why you asked about clarence thomas

00:59:53.460 i also mentioned santiago pliego who is a actually born in mexico and now he's here and he's american

01:00:00.020 citizen naturalized citizen and you talk to him and it's like he he desires not only that he can

01:00:06.660 be sort of grafted into this american heritage but also that his kids will be as well he wants

01:00:12.140 his kids to be just as american as me or in you and anyone else so so the ethnicity then is like

01:00:20.700 an open thing in that the people who come here or existed here but are but are self-consciously

01:00:29.460 kind of bringing themselves into that heritage and want to be part of it not subvert it not

01:00:34.820 undermine it not like hold on to the other stuff but like become one of us assimilate um and they

01:00:41.380 can be and i think and i think like even santiago could be like yeah my people is like george

01:00:46.780 washington yeah like so i and this is again this is like the american i don't think this is me being

01:00:52.160 sentimental i think that's just the the american tradition has always been very open also very kind

01:00:58.360 of like exclusivist and and what the left would call xenophobic but also uh when people come here

01:01:04.580 this openness to conformity. But that's the problem. The problem is that America was open,

01:01:11.240 but it was open to people who wanted to be American. They wanted to join. Now America is

01:01:17.460 open to people who have no desire. On voting ballots, there are voting ballots in some places

01:01:24.840 where you have three languages. If that's not a sign of a nation that's just utterly defeated,

01:01:30.580 then I don't know what is. Like, we're going to have this voting ballot in Spanish. Why?

01:01:39.060 We're English. We speak English. We're Americans. And so to have some measure of

01:01:45.480 principled openness is great, but it's not an openness to come here and still be a Somalian.

01:01:51.820 No, it's to come here because you love America and you want to be American, right?

01:01:55.600 right it's it's the desire yeah so you can either you can either yeah you can come here

01:02:02.920 and kind of exist as a as a kind of um as like a second culture but uh but not the core so you you

01:02:12.400 would essentially be you you'd have a a tolerated way of life but it wouldn't be the part of the

01:02:18.060 core or you can actually kind of bring and graft yourself into the the the core and and that's what

01:02:25.440 i mean by i mean even i mean clarence thomas of course he's he's he's descendant from from slaves

01:02:32.440 so uh and in a way like when we talk about heritage americans it's it's proper to speak of

01:02:39.380 um even the kind of sort of black subcultures that are here um the reason i i would say that

01:02:45.900 that he that clarence thomas is part of a sort of angle protestant ethnos is that he has from

01:02:55.000 from what i can tell self-consciously said i'm american i'm and um and this is this is this is

01:03:01.560 who i am uh and so he's kind of brought himself into that um i mean this is why people call him

01:03:07.020 like you know the oreo and all sorts of horrible names uncle tom uncle tom all that and that's

01:03:12.120 what it is it's it's p this is the same thing like webb du bois would call like booker t washington

01:03:17.220 is yeah people hate him because he yeah because he's an anglo-protestant yeah they call him that

01:03:23.260 because they have identified angel protestant as as only as essentially a white man's uh which

01:03:30.760 broadly speaking in terms of population has been right um but but then they just say oh you're just

01:03:36.540 you're no longer black and now you're white right um but and there's no i mean there's no truth in

01:03:41.400 that in itself but it is recognizing like when they accuse people like soul and uh clarence

01:03:48.000 thomas and others of being those things they are recognizing rightfully that they have actually now

01:03:55.140 that they are they are part of the the core american ethnos and that's why they want to 0.92

01:04:02.520 denounce them and call them all those names uh they'd prefer that they're no longer or not in

01:04:07.860 that core and they would be a sort of like secondary stream of of american ethnos but not

01:04:14.300 i mean the the core the core has always been anglo-protestant and uh but again it's an open

01:04:19.840 ethnicity such that you can have like like a antonin scalia uh he is a italian roman catholic

01:04:25.400 and he has this great story you can watch as a minute and a half and he says that he was in it

01:04:30.200 no he's in italy first right he went to italy he was in and then he went to england yeah yeah right

01:04:38.060 he was in he was in like um continental europe for a while from from switzerland in italy and

01:04:43.240 then he said he went to england i had never been there before after all those all that time in

01:04:47.700 in continental europe and he says he was home like this is home and he was essentially saying

01:04:53.300 we're anglo he said anglo-saxon i would say anglo-protestant but we're uh an anglo-saxon

01:04:59.480 people even though he's genetically from i don't know southern italy or something like that right

01:05:04.320 i know i love that story because it's you know here he is he's american in terms of you know

01:05:09.360 both culture and his citizenship nationality, but then he goes to Italy and that's what, you know,

01:05:15.720 that's his, his, you know, his blood, his, you know, his ancestry. But he feels more at home

01:05:21.940 in Great Britain than he does in Italy. Why? Because, because his whole life he's been in

01:05:27.820 America and America came, America is this British project. It's this Anglo, you know, 0.97

01:05:34.280 protestant project and so naturally his his his italianness uh did not resonate as profoundly

01:05:41.460 in in italy as his americanness resonated in in england um so yeah exactly and again that that

01:05:49.380 just shows it so it would be again i i don't i don't want us to think that this is just a

01:05:57.780 cultural thing as we think it does it does matter i think people need to remind themselves and

01:06:04.220 become conscious of this and this is one reason why i emphasize it you need to be conscious of

01:06:08.520 the fact that you have ancestry here right like that you need to restore that you may not even

01:06:15.200 know like i don't i know that i have like some preacher from connecticut in the late 1600s in my

01:06:20.120 my my ancestral line but i don't know everything else but you know what you know what does matter

01:06:25.340 though is that literally my great great great grandparents they've been here since 16 something

01:06:31.620 and that that matters uh and and everyone here and if it means that you don't have anyone here

01:06:38.320 well you're interacting with people who do and you're you are in or you're living life with

01:06:44.600 people who do and you can see yourself as as your sort of life project as bringing yourself into

01:06:50.860 that to tell i i forget who it was i think adi robe was uh was it him who said that his father

01:06:56.760 said we're not speaking spanish in this house we're speaking english and that's because we're

01:07:01.000 or become an american so you can deliberately you can do these things to become uh one of us

01:07:07.960 but again today that the the the the governing principle now is that actually no you just be

01:07:15.000 exactly what you were before and just affirm these propositions take an oath and you're in

01:07:20.520 in america is just an idea and an economic zone and reap the benefits without really any commitment

01:07:27.160 um but yeah and that is not sustainable and really send a send send send a good portion

01:07:34.780 of your income overseas i mean in central and south america it's amazing how much of their

01:07:39.220 economies are actually sustained by people in the u.s sending money back and so the incentive

01:07:45.040 structure for so anyway yeah that's for south america but then when it comes to ukraine

01:07:49.340 we send money through tax dollars you know or israel you're right you know but no that's that's

01:07:55.020 really helpful i'd like um just as you you know the the whether it be uh clarence thomas thomas

01:08:00.380 soul i mean even votie bacham would fall into this category but that was helpful thinking uh

01:08:04.760 because i watched the documentaries i don't know if you saw them there was an uncle tom documentary

01:08:08.500 and then an uncle tom too and and they were helpful and uh especially the second one i really

01:08:13.480 like the second one they had votie bacham in it a lot and um but it's helpful to think like okay

01:08:18.160 what is this accusation, this pejorative, this being levied against, you know, black men who are,

01:08:26.740 you know, like Clarence Thomas, Anglo, you know, Protestants that have really adopted and fully

01:08:31.660 committed and assimilated into this American heritage and love it and identify with it. And,

01:08:37.440 you know, and so they're being, you know, cursed and demeaned because of that decision and because 0.68

01:08:41.780 of that assimilation. And, you know, what, but what's contained in this, you know, pejorative

01:08:47.120 of uncle tom that's being levied and i think one of the things that's you know two things that's

01:08:51.040 being contained one is that there really is a hegemony there really is a a core culture of

01:08:56.960 america and it must be the dominant culture if not then we're just fractured and splintered and

01:09:01.600 a house divided against itself cannot stand it's just not sustainable so there one there really is

01:09:06.760 a core culture and that core culture is anglo-protestant and the fact that that's levied

01:09:12.380 against a black man whereas it wouldn't be levied against necessarily a white man we just say 0.99

01:09:17.100 hey, I hate whiteness. But there'd be a recognition of like, but of course you're 0.99

01:09:21.000 white because, you know, of course you're acting like an Anglo-Protestant because you're white 1.00

01:09:24.420 and I hate it. But with a black man, it's the levied charge of Uncle Tom is basically a charge 1.00

01:09:31.300 of betrayal. You're a traitor to your own kind. And what that to me indicates is that not only 1.00

01:09:37.660 is there a dominant culture in America's history and heritage that's Anglo-Protestant, but that

01:09:42.160 that dominant culture has been, in terms of skin color, predominantly made up of white people.

01:09:47.480 And it doesn't mean that non-white people can't be a part of it, but it has been majority

01:09:51.520 European in terms of color. It has been predominantly white. And that's why someone

01:09:58.460 like Votie Bauckham would be accused by the left as being a turncoat, a traitor. That's what Uncle

01:10:06.200 Tom means. And so I think to recognize that is not to be exclusive, and it's certainly not to be

01:10:11.640 racist, which is a word that just has virtually no meaning at this point. It's none of those

01:10:17.140 things, but it is to recognize we are distinct people, a distinct country. We have a heritage,

01:10:23.140 a history, a foundation. What is that? What is that culture? Multiculturalism is not our strength.

01:10:29.820 We want to have a dominant culture. What is it? What has it historically been made up of? 0.97

01:10:36.120 And then who all can join, but then in joining, what are the distinctives and what are the

01:10:40.700 commitments and what does this entail? All these are incredibly important questions and none of

01:10:45.940 these are, they're not colorblind, but they're also not, but they're also, it's, it's, it is

01:10:53.860 not a sinful, a sinful racial partiality. It's acknowledging race, but, but not sinfully. Like

01:11:02.440 I remember even the statement, I think we showed you or somebody in our, our little crew showed

01:11:07.060 you. This was a year half ago, and we're going to actually make it the final draft public. It's

01:11:11.800 been forever. A lot of the guys are SBC, and they're fighting for the life to try to keep

01:11:17.220 out women pastors right now. But eventually, when all that's done, we're going to publish our 0.99

01:11:21.120 statement on Christian nationalism and the gospel, the final draft. And one of the things that we

01:11:25.320 changed was initially we said, we repudiate the sin of ethnic partiality. And after getting some

01:11:33.060 feedback from other guys and thinking through that and thinking biblically about that, we changed it

01:11:38.400 to, we repudiate, instead of the sin of ethnic partiality, we changed it to, we repudiate sinful

01:11:44.460 ethnic partiality, recognizing that in the realm of partiality, it can be done sinfully, but not

01:11:50.380 inherently. And, you know, for Japan to have a preference for Japanese people is not inherently

01:12:00.480 sinful. It could be. There can be sinful expressions of that. Just kind of in the same

01:12:05.680 way that anger, Jesus says, in your anger, do not sin. So it's not just to be angry is inherently

01:12:10.760 sinful, but there is a way in anger to behave sinfully. And that's just, I don't know. I'm

01:12:18.660 thinking through these things, and that's just a conversation that right now, the typical American

01:12:23.960 just can't handle. They just lose their mind. What people don't get, like when I say things

01:12:30.280 like you should prefer your own or you should prefer your own ethnicity as i've as i've defined

01:12:35.160 it already but when i say that i'm talking i'm saying that it's actually it it's not that it's

01:12:42.960 not that it's it's good in itself regardless of the effects but that it's good to prefer your

01:12:50.700 own family your own parents your own children and your own people your own canon group ethnicity

01:12:57.560 because of the way that we are made by god that is the way to bring about good so a nation should

01:13:05.400 prefer people who are similar because if you bring people in who are similar they can assimilate into

01:13:11.340 the collective life of that people just like in like again japan why would i mean japan's slipping

01:13:16.700 on this a little bit but one reason why they've preferred have very restrictive immigration

01:13:21.340 is to keep japan japanese right as a distinct ethnicity and they knew that wisely knew that

01:13:27.900 if you bring in a mass outsiders it'll change the nature of japan and and what's happened in japan

01:13:34.980 i mean you go there it's the safest cleanest country in the entire world um and there's been 0.72

01:13:40.220 recent actually some immigrants my or they've brought in and there's been videos i've seen

01:13:44.340 where well not so safe and not so clean um and so yeah so like if the point being is that that

01:13:53.060 that um the ability to interact with people not only via language but also through cultural and

01:13:58.640 mutual understanding of manners and customs uh and to be able to like just if even people

01:14:06.140 with accent i remember i was just just at the airport i was struggling to try to get answers

01:14:10.440 and in dallas was like where do i go to get the the the uh the courtesy van and like i couldn't

01:14:16.980 communicate with anyone uh because it was just such just like this uh uh you know um it's like

01:14:23.500 it's like being in babble and all so right uh no texas is crazy man it's great it's like where

01:14:29.760 where am i yeah yeah and um anyway the point being is that that there's actually good there's a there's

01:14:37.940 good it's good to be around people where you can communicate as as well as possible so that we can

01:14:45.540 all achieve not only collective projects but your own individual project or what you're up to at the

01:14:49.660 moment so i like again americans have to get like everyone christians have to get out of their mind

01:14:54.800 this idea that like preferring your own ethnic group is some good in itself that we ought to do

01:14:59.540 no it's like if you if you just look at not only the social science data but your own experience

01:15:04.640 you'll see that you gravitate towards people who are similar precisely because of the good involved

01:15:10.220 in that the good in effect and that's what my argument that's my argument from the book 0.92

01:15:15.060 and but people just i don't know if it's race brain or what it is but they're incapable

01:15:19.340 of of seeing that even though they experience it nowadays daily right almost daily they experience

01:15:26.720 the difficulty of being around difference just like just language alone you you call a helpline

01:15:32.220 you know whatever yeah technical support you know because your webcam's not working or

01:15:36.740 and like this like the almost audible sigh of relief that i'll have uh when when the person

01:15:44.480 who answers on the other side of the line uh speaks coherent english you know and i'm just

01:15:48.700 oh phew you know because because i know we you know that so much has been outsourced and

01:15:54.180 especially with technical support and those kinds of things and hotlines and

01:15:58.000 support staff. And I know that I've got like a 90% chance that the person who's going to pick

01:16:03.700 up the phone, I can barely understand. And so it's just, if nothing else, I mean, God even

01:16:11.480 says that in Genesis 11, that if they remain united, one people, that there's nothing they

01:16:18.720 cannot do. And therefore he confuses their languages and not, it is a judgment, but it's

01:16:24.440 a judgment with mercy baked into the judgment pie, because really what it does is it gets

01:16:29.780 mankind, it doesn't throw them off the rails. In their sin and arrogance and pride, they were off

01:16:36.420 the rails. God's judgment of confusing their languages actually gets them back on track with

01:16:40.860 their original design. Like they actually say, it's not just a sin of arrogance saying, we'll

01:16:45.060 build a tower to the heavens, but it's also a sin of direct rebellion to the command given in the

01:16:50.500 garden to be fruitful, multiply, and to spread out and fill the earth and subdue it. They say,

01:16:55.040 if we do this, not only will we make a name for ourselves and ascend to heaven and be on par with

01:16:59.120 God, but we will let us make a name for ourselves so that we will not be scattered over the face

01:17:04.920 of the earth, aka so that we will not fulfill the very command that God has given us, which was to

01:17:09.720 spread out and to fill the earth. And God's mercy, it is a judgment for their sin of arrogance,

01:17:14.320 but it's also a mercy of them trying to not obey God. And the judgment at Babel is God 0.90

01:17:23.280 working as a catalyst to really just not to put man now on some track that was never the intended

01:17:31.780 good or purpose, but it's actually as a catalyst, man had gotten off track because of sin and God

01:17:38.580 now in a catalytic way puts them back on track of spreading out over the face of the earth and

01:17:45.100 then naturally out of that comes certain distinct distinctions and and cultural distinctions and

01:17:51.180 uh you know and and that's um and that's a good that that is a natural good and the other thing

01:17:57.460 about that story people i don't think you'll pick up on is like they they could they could

01:18:02.600 achieve their their project even though it was like it was sinful in orientation they could

01:18:08.160 achieve that precisely because they were the same people like they spoke the same language right

01:18:13.020 like you could achieve great projects i mean they're they use greatness to evil ends but you

01:18:18.220 can use you can achieve greatness to good ends and how do you do that well you have to be able

01:18:22.700 to speak each other's language perfectly i know it turns out that like once no one speaks the

01:18:26.580 same language you can't actually fulfill and achieve the same project so if you have this

01:18:31.140 this uh if you essentially recreate you know the post-judgment babble on in america well sorry you're

01:18:38.060 not we're not actually going to achieve any sort of natural greatness for good right uh national

01:18:42.780 yeah so and if that the story itself should communicate to us that you need to have similarity

01:18:47.960 in order to achieve anything great amen and without it you actually can't you yeah one last

01:18:53.000 biblical example for for the listeners because i am after all a pastor and so i you know but one

01:19:00.300 one other biblical example that i i'm i'm sure you know you've used a million times but just

01:19:05.540 thinking of the Apostle Paul, there's an order of loves. There's a hierarchy and prioritization

01:19:12.920 of commitments and affections. And Paul doesn't say, hey, for the Cretans, I'd be willing to go

01:19:19.240 to hell. But he says for his own people, Romans 9, for my own kin, my own kinsmen according to

01:19:27.640 the flesh, I would be willing to be cut off from the riches and the mercies of God if it might

01:19:32.880 somehow reconcile them, save them. And then, you know, back to like benefits, right? Like,

01:19:37.780 so like physical training is a, it's not ultimate value, but it's not no value, it's some value.

01:19:41.960 Well, then he talks about, you know, the value of heritage and ancestry, you know, and particularly

01:19:46.600 of the Jewish sort. And he says, you know, well, you know, if it's, if salvation is for the Gentiles

01:19:51.880 and for the Jews, and it's not, you know, it's according to the promise and not according to 0.71

01:19:55.140 the flesh, then of what benefit is there in being a Jew? And you would expect him to say, like, 0.82

01:19:59.200 it feels like he's building it all up to say, none, you know, boomers for the win and, you know, 0.51

01:20:04.020 race doesn't exist. But he doesn't say that. He says, well, actually, what benefit is there in

01:20:09.520 being a Jew, even though you can be saved as a Gentile and co-heirs of grace and all that? 0.74

01:20:14.820 Well, there's still much in every way. There's a benefit in being a Jew for theirs is the law 1.00

01:20:19.360 and theirs is the prophets. And so then I think of that like in an Anglo sense, you know, like, 1.00

01:20:24.620 well, if, you know, the white race is, you know, not superior and doesn't have any special promises 0.92

01:20:32.560 or, you know, Christianity 2.0 or, you know, we can get salvation, you know, not just salvation, 0.79

01:20:38.760 but salvation, you know, twice. We can be saved three times or, you know, if there's none of that

01:20:43.500 in the eternal, spiritual, truest, ultimate sense, well, then of what advantage is there in 0.92

01:20:48.200 being, you know, of European descent? And I feel like I could answer that much in the way 0.93

01:20:52.760 scripture does, Paul doesn't say, well, much in every way. For theirs are the reformers,

01:20:57.460 theirs are the Puritans. There is a, like Paul says, here are the prophets and here is the law 0.99

01:21:04.100 in our history. And even though currently we've rejected that history by the Jews rejecting the 0.93

01:21:09.920 prophets, killing the prophets, and then killing Christ. And yet still, that's part of our story. 0.97

01:21:16.520 And it's a good story. It's a great story that the prophets are in our lineage. And I think for

01:21:22.000 the european to say um that you know that calvin you know and and luther and you know that the

01:21:28.800 reformers and the puritans are in that european lineage and to identify with that and to be proud

01:21:35.280 of that um and not a sinful pride but but a good sense of pride these are my people this is my

01:21:41.860 history um and and i just don't think it's a coincidence that all that can be defended

01:21:47.040 biblically without being sinfully racist. But the whole world, including much of the church right

01:21:54.680 now, wants to demonize that and wants to get particularly young, straight, white men to hate

01:22:03.240 their ancestors, to absolutely disobey the fifth commandment, to hate their fathers and to hate 0.94

01:22:09.320 their mothers and to hate their heritage. And when somebody's trying to get you to hate something

01:22:15.200 and like, oh, it's really bad.

01:22:16.420 It's so, so bad.

01:22:17.100 Why is it bad?

01:22:17.720 I can't really, you know,

01:22:18.460 I can't really back up with substance, my argument,

01:22:20.560 but it's so bad and you should hate it.

01:22:21.940 And it's terrible.

01:22:23.020 That like, that just, that makes me pause.

01:22:26.300 I'm like, I don't think I will hate this.

01:22:28.140 No, I don't think I will.

01:22:29.600 You know, so that, I don't know.

01:22:31.520 And I think a lot of young men right now are waking up

01:22:34.360 and my concern, not to be a concern, bro,

01:22:37.780 but my concern is that, man,

01:22:40.200 there's just not a lot of good Christian,

01:22:42.780 older Christian men in that space to say, you're waking up? Good. You're right. This is evil. You 0.99

01:22:51.520 should hate this. You should hate it. And here's how to hate it well. Instead, you've got all these 0.97

01:22:56.700 guys, pastors in the church saying, oh, you shouldn't be angry at all. And why are you so

01:23:03.180 mad? And are you just jealous? And then we're shocked when they flock to Nick Fuentes or

01:23:12.520 you know like because there's no reasonable right on on this particular issue especially

01:23:17.060 within you know pastors in the evangelical church so i'm i'm trying by the grace of god

01:23:21.300 to maybe be a reasonable right you know in the you're doing it you know as an author and

01:23:27.180 politically and these kinds of and i'm i'm trying to you know maybe i can be one of the few pastors

01:23:31.520 um that's that doesn't have the you know the race brain and the you know the boomer mentality so

01:23:38.280 yeah i i mean what i've said before is that we we tend to be like we tend to view the the western

01:23:45.920 world as this very universal human thing so any and all can be a part of it um and yet we we are

01:23:52.520 we're also cast as the villains of it so if you take american history um the history we want to

01:23:59.340 say is the march of progress and freedom but like who's being marched over or who's the loser in

01:24:05.640 that narrative it's it's the white male and so essentially the church and in the left everyone's

01:24:11.500 basically saying that we have this progressive narrative of history um and uh and and yet of

01:24:17.440 course we have to cast ourselves as a villain so it's not surprising again that again people would

01:24:21.440 young men who said wait i don't i don't want to be a villain i don't want to go through my life

01:24:25.720 as this like self-hating white guy right um they go to the people who are telling them that no you

01:24:30.520 don't have to be a self-hating white guy which is you and i are one of those people right um and 0.94

01:24:34.480 we're attacked relentlessly for for for denying that you have to be a self-hating white guy 0.92

01:24:39.780 uh but on the thing of being proud of of your history and to be european the way i i look at

01:24:45.920 it is like you look at the the sort of books look at the works that like that are part of your

01:24:50.880 heritage that you've inherited um as being someone who's not only american but america as rooted in

01:24:57.300 the old world i mean everything from shakespeare and then political truth political tradition you

01:25:03.120 have uh you know everyone from from john lock to the scottish uh the scottish enlightenment

01:25:09.060 all these different works that um are that reflect uh a a discourse and discussion that's

01:25:17.520 gone over for through centuries that started in a part from reading the ancient greeks and and

01:25:23.260 the romans and now came to expression in different places in europe all of that is part of your

01:25:29.140 inheritance and they are good so they are objectively good in themselves but there are

01:25:33.540 they're also yours i think we should get away from this idea that you have this that that the

01:25:40.540 the great books of the western tradition we they're in and some are out simply for objective

01:25:46.660 universal human merit um of course they all have merit but we should also say they're in there

01:25:53.160 because they are distinctly ours you know right they are our our great books our works that we

01:26:00.400 that when we talk about politics as a westerner we reference adam smith we reference john locke

01:26:07.540 we reference john calvin or thomas aquinas um you know because they are part of the broad discussion

01:26:14.660 of our tradition and that's why it would be weird to to cite you typically some kind of

01:26:19.760 for a Chinese author. It would make a lot of sense for someone in China to cite a Chinese author

01:26:28.880 when it comes to their political tradition. And perhaps at times, it would make sense for us as

01:26:34.140 well, but for the most part... If we're talking about the art of war, maybe we'll cite...

01:26:38.800 What's that?

01:26:39.560 I was saying if we're talking about fighting and the art of war, then that's the only time I hear

01:26:44.660 the yeah certainly there's like some crossover no yeah absolutely but but i mean just in general

01:26:50.240 in general when when someone cites aquinas or they cite monescue um they they there's a sense

01:27:00.420 in which there's some authority there even if you disagree there's some seriousness to it

01:27:05.960 um that needs to be contended with right and and that is true because this is our tradition

01:27:12.700 and these are the great books that have arisen in that tradition and should be taken seriously

01:27:17.080 but that'll be different in different places um but but unfortunately either like you go to your

01:27:22.940 class at like your classical christian school or or college and they'll say oh these just have

01:27:28.420 objective human worth and that's why they're in and that's why there's movements to like include

01:27:32.360 international works like non-western or in the canon or in the the curricula because now they're

01:27:38.920 they're following the logic like well why are you excluding these others if it's just objective

01:27:43.740 human merit and not something about inheritance but we need to get back to saying no art no like

01:27:49.320 this is this is ours because they're not as good see i would say i you know i this is controversial

01:27:55.460 but i would say it's both i would say uh the great tradition western tradition is um is of

01:28:01.040 immense value because one it's ours everything you're saying it's ours um also uh what's ours

01:28:06.720 is also best. And I believe that. And I think part of the reason I believe that is because

01:28:11.600 C.A., it's ours. And I'm a descendant of this tradition. So naturally, of course, I think it's

01:28:18.040 best. So one, it's my tradition. But two, I believe that my tradition is the best tradition,

01:28:26.480 probably in part because it's my tradition. Yeah, I mean, exactly. And I don't think there's

01:28:31.680 anything wrong with that um right and even when even when there's there's things that would be

01:28:36.560 kind of like people say well why why do we focus on uh like uh the works from ancient greece when

01:28:43.120 they're so far away from england and there's an argument there but the fact of the matter is

01:28:47.300 everyone read aristotle everyone read plato and so how can you understand your own even like from

01:28:54.600 scottish to to anglo to english to french to italian spanish how can you even understand what

01:29:01.920 they're saying if you haven't read aristotle's ethics or his politics or um you know plato's

01:29:07.700 republic so uh but yeah yeah so uh so um affirm your tradition love it and uh don't don't let

01:29:16.280 someone say that it's don't don't let them villainize you for saying this is we love it

01:29:22.280 because it's ours and it's inheritance yeah don't like don't let the uh the bug eating pod

01:29:29.460 living regime uh yeah convince you to disobey god and the fifth commandment and hate your father 0.85

01:29:38.060 and mother that's a sin we that that's a sin so steven thanks for your work and uh thank you for

01:29:44.240 being willing in a lot of ways to kind of uh be a bit of a trailblazer i mean none of it's really

01:29:50.460 new if in the big picture of going back to dead guys you know um but uh but in our particular

01:29:56.180 moment in time sadly we've gotten so far off the rails that uh the things that you've been saying

01:30:01.560 uh to a lot of you know people today uh are heard as though they're completely novel and nobody has

01:30:08.080 ever had the unmitigated gall to say such a thing you know before and and yet um you seem perfectly

01:30:14.000 content to say those things stick to your guns not back down and then you know and then in your

01:30:20.440 free time, go hang out with your kids on your farm and play with goats. And it's great. I mean,

01:30:26.860 your ministry and the way that the Lord's using you is great because you're providing the cover

01:30:31.900 fire for guys like me and some of the guys in the pulpit, pastors. And we need, like you said,

01:30:37.000 more than pastors. But you as a non-pastor and being in a little bit less of a cancelable position,

01:30:43.380 um you're using you're you're utilizing that um that position well and providing some cover fire

01:30:50.020 and i hope that more pastors will wake up and see uh the cover fire you're providing and the

01:30:55.420 trail that you're blazing and take advantage of it instead of uh just turning on you and lobbing

01:31:00.860 grenades um but i i don't know i don't know if you feel this way but as a bystander looking in

01:31:07.020 it does feel hopeful that you know that the tide is turning a little bit do you feel that way

01:31:12.200 Yeah, I think absolutely. Especially among the younger generations. I think there's some dangers among the younger guys, I think, because they're so unmoored from a lot of things. But there's also a lot of opportunity to kind of, they can break out of some of the ideology that you see in the older generations.

01:31:32.380 um but yeah i mean i appreciate i appreciate what you have to say and i i try my best i i do in the

01:31:37.820 spirit of the fifth commandment i do have to credit my father for um make for leading me on

01:31:44.020 the the path to um become the sort of thinker i am today so i give credit a lot of credit to him

01:31:51.240 for that praise god all right uh last thing how how can people follow you uh any any projects on

01:31:57.220 the horizon boy i do have an event in uh are you i don't know yeah in texas yeah it's like the the

01:32:03.400 blue the true texas conference it's in dallas okay um cj angle is going to be there cool this

01:32:09.640 is going to be there um i like cj yeah that's in uh yeah and paul gottfried so we're speaking of

01:32:14.640 that already got media inquiries about how you know you know there's there's nefarious people

01:32:19.340 there wolf are you you sure you want to associate with those people um but uh i didn't reply back

01:32:25.660 of course but um i usually mess with the journalists a little bit i i try like i demand

01:32:31.300 that they call me dr wolf and all sorts of things uh it's kind of fun um but dr jill biden if she

01:32:37.680 can demand then i think yeah right you're good yeah um yeah oh so also twitter you'll see me

01:32:43.560 it's uh i won't try to give you my twitter handle but you know you'll see me i'm the guy with 20,000

01:32:48.900 followers um and that's that's about it but yeah i have articles american reformer the my speech or

01:32:55.040 talk at the ogden event will be published there right it's on patreon now if you're a club member

01:33:00.760 on on their patreon new chrysidham uh new chrysidham press.com slash patreon or something

01:33:07.860 but it will be available to the public and then lastly though uh you uh you're starting your own

01:33:14.660 youtube channel right you want to plug that yeah i'm trying to do that more uh trying to improve

01:33:19.260 you know all around quality and all that but yeah it said yeah you'll find me there um i think it's

01:33:23.920 like sm wolf i think it's or steven wolf maybe okay um i don't know i don't know youtube as

01:33:29.380 well just google steve steve wolf on youtube i'm sure yeah you'll find me um and uh yeah you can

01:33:34.640 see me there as well yeah i'm trying to i'm trying to do more of those videos great well

01:33:38.580 thanks for your work and uh thanks for coming on the show today appreciate it

The NXR Podcast - July 01, 2024

THE INTERVIEW ｜ The Blessings Of An American Monoculture ｜ Anglo Protestant with Stephen Wolfe

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