In this episode of Theology Applied, Pastor Joel Webin sits down with Eric and Dan Burkholder, hosts of The King's Hall podcast, to discuss the Crusades, King Alfred, and other great men of the past.
00:02:47.080And then really, as we looked at that, I mean, Dan can speak to this too, but like with King Alfred, you find that the version of Christianity back then is very different than today.
00:02:59.100And a lot of times that's a bad thing.
00:03:01.200So as we started to unpack sort of the foundations, I think that's where we were saying, what stirs us?
00:03:11.600And as we started to share some of that with our audience on Twitter and other places, you start to realize that there's something in the masculine soul that will resonate with Jan Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna and Richard the Lionheart.
00:03:25.380And I think it's something, the masculinity, the piety that they demonstrated, I think is something that's missing in modern evangelicalism.
00:03:32.840you know i told dan uh the other day as we're preparing for 1683 in the battle of vienna in
00:03:38.980one of our next episodes uh the super bowl happened and i'm sure you saw it as well but
00:03:43.800we see a pastrix lady pastrix kicking off a bible across the stage and this was a super bowl service
00:03:51.040that was held in a church and i said to dan what do you think jan sobieski would have thought about
00:03:56.400something like this or alfred the great or richard the lionheart um and and it just it goes to
00:04:02.320showcase, I think, just how different the faith was. So anyway, I think that was kind of the
00:04:06.100motive. Dan, you can speak to that, but wanting to recover who were our forefathers.
00:04:11.220Yeah. In a lot of ways, this season is us self-educating as we go through the season,
00:04:16.160because it's interesting how great a disservice church history books have done to us,
00:04:22.660because they talk about the theological battles, which are good, and the ecumenical councils and
00:04:28.700the martyrs and the great missionaries of the faith. But all of that we were talking about
00:04:33.820with Alfred and Richard the Lionheart and Baldwin and Jan Sobieski, all of these men are great
00:04:41.840Christian heroes, and we're discovering them for the first time for ourselves. And you can see,
00:04:47.740like Eric said, it's resonating with men because of the courage that they shared in the fight of
00:04:53.560the faith that they had to fight at their particular place in particular time, especially
00:04:57.800in defense of their people it's also interesting as we dig into the history that you see how much
00:05:03.500revisionist history you've been fed throughout your education we went to public school and so
00:05:10.320the narrative has always been well christendom the first christendom was bad like just inherently it
00:05:16.360was evil and oppressive and uh they attacked a lot of innocent muslims and that's what we were told
00:05:22.820and then you go look at the histories and you realize that's actually not true at all well and
00:05:27.740I think one of the things too, Joel, was that we were, we have guild training, which is our elder
00:05:31.820training. So we've all been plowing through different church histories, Bruce Shelley,
00:05:37.020Yusso Gonzalez. One of the things we realized we're like, okay. And adjacent to that, we're
00:05:41.840doing all the research for season three. We're like, why are these Christian heroes missing
00:05:45.680from the church history? Like, why do we view this separately? And a lot of times you'll find
00:05:52.360even in guys who are quote unquote conservative, they're talking about lady pastors and why it was
00:05:56.600a good thing or um you know they're talking about well you know Constantine he was pretty bad though
00:06:01.380like that was pretty bad for the church I wish that wouldn't have happened and so I think we
00:06:05.200also found ourselves like scratching our head and saying wait a minute even in the church even in
00:06:09.540the conservative part of the church we really don't like big portions of Christendom and these
00:06:14.480guys were actually heroes right yeah you said uh with your elder training you called it guild
00:06:20.880training I'm just gonna assume the word was actually geld you're training them to pay the
00:06:25.540dangle training them to compromise we are not training them never pay the dangle never pay
00:06:34.000the dangle joel you'll never let's let's uh use that as a launching pad into your most recent
00:06:39.520episode now i'm not sure when this is going to air so at this point you know for the listener
00:06:43.260uh it probably will not be uh the king's almost recent episode so you can go back a few uh but
00:06:49.220the one that you did particularly on king alfred you're using ben merkel uh what is it the winter
00:06:53.960King. What's the name of his book? Yeah. So The White Horse King. The White Horse King. There it
00:06:59.160is. Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, kind of similar to you guys, my journey of recovering our heritage
00:07:05.580and our, you know, our legacy, Christian legacy, same thing. So I read that book a couple months
00:07:10.620ago and was impressed by, you know, how great these men were, you know, and how, you know,
00:07:16.460feeling the sense of I've been lied to and all those kinds of things. But there was one part
00:07:20.060in particular that stood out to me. And then Dan, when I listened to you guys episodes on King
00:07:26.480Alfred, you mentioned the same thing, but King Alfred, one of the most glorious battles that he
00:07:31.440won facing the Danes was he was leading half of his army because the other half was following his
00:07:39.700brother and his brother was late for a particular reason. Can you give us a little bit of that scene
00:07:44.740and how that might apply to evangelicals today?
00:08:28.580Alfred and Æthelstan decided that they would also split their army in half to match the Viking forces so that they wouldn't, you know, for battle tactics.
00:08:37.760So Alfred shows up for the battle right in front of the Vikings, right in front of the Danes, and he's supposed to have his brother there with the other half of the army, the king.
00:11:23.340I said in the episode that it was one of the most important battles in Western history, not because of its size or because of the land or it secured a kingdom, but it actually gave us one of the greatest kings in Christendom with King Alfred.
00:11:39.820It was the battle that ended up giving him credibility, and it was soon decided after that that he would be heir apparent to the throne if Athelstan died, and he did shortly thereafter.
00:11:52.220And then we got King Alfred, who is the father of what we now know as Britain or England.
00:12:03.020I feel like there's probably multiple different elements that could be drawn out.
00:12:07.880But in what ways do you see people like King Alfred's brother lingering long in their prayers
00:12:15.240in piety when there's actually a battle that they're neglecting?
00:12:19.420Yeah, I think you see this a lot in certain pietistic circles where there is an element, prayer is good. You should pray. But me and my Bible by myself, me as my own Pope, me in my prayers, and that's the front lines of battle as far as they extend for certain folks when there are actually people out there that are, they want to enslave your women and children.
00:12:47.040they want to steal your legacy they want you to stay in your prayer closet they want you there
00:12:54.560they actually they prefer to keep it there you've heard the idea a long time ago before a burger
00:13:01.400felt and things like that like i don't care what people do in their bedrooms you know it's it's
00:13:05.620their own business well that applies actually to you too christian they're they're fine as long as
00:13:10.460you keep your christianity inside your home and inside your head but as soon as it comes outside
00:13:15.840the four walls of your home, the enemy would tremble because you actually worship the King
00:13:21.820of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And so there's a whole group of people, and it's really modern
00:13:26.940American Christianity that exercises this sort of pietism that would say your faith should not
00:13:32.280touch anywhere outside of your home or church, that there's this whole category of untouchable
00:13:38.320law that God, I guess you should not be interacting with, that Christ is Lord, but
00:13:44.660not in that specific way. And so you find a lot of cowards. Yeah, I think another part of it is,0.96
00:13:52.740you know, history is helpful because it shows you that these things have existed for a long time.1.00
00:13:56.620So even in the 1500s into the 1600s, you still have the onslaught of Islam. And Martin Luther,0.99
00:14:03.620actually, in his early writings, because he was so oppositional to the... Sorry about that. Sorry.
00:14:11.280because Martin Luther was so oppositional to what was going on with the Roman Catholic Church
00:14:16.420and their practice of indulgences connected with the Crusades, right? A lot of that stuff
00:14:21.200is theologically problematic. But early on, he had said things like, you know, it's better just
00:14:26.640for the Muslims to kill us. And all they're doing is sending people straight to heaven,1.00
00:14:30.780so we should thank them. He changed course later in his life, especially if you have a couple
00:14:36.880major battles. Solomon the Magnificent lays siege to Vienna for the first time, and Luther will0.79
00:14:42.700change his position. But I think even that, it goes to show you that there's always that tendency
00:14:47.840among Christians to over-spiritualize things. And I think one of the things I take from Alfred0.76
00:14:53.460is what I've often said to people just in pastoral council. God seems to seldom answer a man who's
00:15:00.420praying for a hole and leaning on a shovel. So pray by all means, but get to work. God seems to
00:15:05.540honor that. And so the man in history who did a lot of great things, they viewed all of life as
00:15:12.880pertaining to piety and defending their people and their nation as pertaining to piety. And so
00:15:18.900it wasn't, as Dan said, it wasn't just, you know, pray in your prayer closet and that's going to be
00:15:23.660enough. We actually have to defend the walls. The danger of centralized power is often represented
00:15:28.580by the word king. As Americans, we hate the word king. Civilian ownership of body armor is about
00:15:36.820helping people to have increased power to resist tyrants and criminals. And so armored republic is
00:15:44.420about helping you to preserve your God-given rights to the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ
00:15:49.300because he is the king of kings and he governs kings and he will judge them.
00:15:53.380this is armored republic and in a republic there is no king but christ
00:15:59.840we are free craftsmen and we are honored to be your armor spread choice
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00:17:25.080sign up today some of what we're getting at is just in a general sense would be ambition
00:17:31.000um eric you've talked about this um in the past but it seems like um ambition uh especially when
00:17:38.180it comes to men right because if you're if you're a woman um then you're constantly being encouraged
00:17:43.640to be ambitious even within a lot of soft you know or even conservative sadly uh evangelical
00:17:49.760circles if you're a woman you know you'll be pushed in that direction to take risk to be
00:17:54.560ambitious, to not be a doormat, don't allow yourself to be trampled over, you know, do this,
00:18:00.080do that, exercise power. You know, I think Foster said it before, like, if you want really good
00:18:05.000advice as a young man, just read, like, you know, read a Vice article that's written to women,
00:18:10.080you know, or something like that, you know, that'll lead you in the right direction.
00:18:14.080But within evangelical circles, within the church, as it pertains to men, ambition has been
00:18:20.880frowned upon severely, that basically ambition has been chalked up to vanity, worldliness,
00:18:29.220selfishness, idolatry, everything's an idol. And you've talked a little bit about that,
00:18:34.440Eric, but I feel like if we're trying to apply this principle of a king who's lingering long
00:18:40.080in his prayers when he should be fighting, I think ambition is part of what we're getting at,
00:18:46.760that i think a lot of people today within the church have been encouraged to um to place piety
00:18:54.060it will to take two things and put them at odds when when there really should be no uh they shouldn't
00:19:00.980be at odds you know piety and dominion ambition and these kinds of things but it seems like um
00:19:08.500we're constantly being encouraged by the church not to have any ambition outside of you know
00:19:13.800faithful attendance and membership in a local church, our quiet time and prayer life, being a
00:19:18.920good husband, and being a good dad. But anything, you know, if it comes to politics or economics
00:19:25.640and markets and starting a business or this or that or the other, that's usually frowned upon.
00:19:30.820And if somebody does find themselves being, you know, successful in the business world or
00:19:35.960something like that, it's always, you know, only spoken of in a positive light if they live on the
00:19:42.380least amount possible and give everything else to the church. What do you think about that?
00:19:47.400Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I think it really comes back to kind of one pivotal
00:19:52.320thing that we've seen more clearly since 2020. But essentially what you have is what I call
00:19:57.800regime evangelicals, regime-aligned evangelical leaders who are all for appropriating Christianity,
00:20:05.800not necessarily destroying it, but appropriating it for leftist causes. And this includes the
00:20:10.100weakening of men so one thing you see even right now happening you know it's it's not uh you know
00:20:17.480it's not just a coincidence that karen swallow prior is publishing things like the biblical
00:20:21.560masculinity movement is a scam okay well why does she think that well because she's dolores on bridge
00:20:27.160and she's a school marm and all those things but fundamentally they realize the problem that if
00:20:31.600their goal is to push leftist woke he gets us style jesus well an obstacle that the key obstacle
00:20:38.260to left wokeism is men acting like men and reading histories like this and then saying,
00:20:44.200wait a minute, we don't actually have to act like pansies.
00:20:46.760We can actually be a guy like Alfred who had godly courage.
00:20:50.940He had a grand vision for what he wanted Christendom to be.
00:20:54.940And it was Christendom that he envisioned for England.
00:26:02.340The immigrant ends up murdering someone and, you know, or getting in some brawl, some fight and beating up police officers gets let off with a slap on the wrist and does the double bird, you know, to the news media crew on his way out saying, you know, F America.0.99
00:26:19.440These like, that's not a hypothetical.0.92
00:30:34.400In England, before Alfred, that when the Vikings first invaded Lindisfarne, which is the holy
00:30:41.240island of Lindisfarne. The emperor, I'm sorry, Charlemagne's clerk or whomever, Alcuin, he wrote
00:30:51.480to the king in Wessex and said, it's because of the sensualities, because of fornications and
00:30:59.300adult deeds that the judgment of God has come upon you. So it's the same thing, Yarmouk. We're
00:31:05.400finding this on repeat within history. And the assumption, I think, for a lot of pietistic
00:31:09.740christians is that well that's old testament that's old covenant sort of language right that
00:31:15.720the people of god would turn away and god would send enemies against them and judge them but we
00:31:19.860have christ now and so that doesn't happen well history would beg to differ and so really the
00:31:26.280trajectory that we're on is that we're under judgment and that there will be more judgment
00:31:31.020unless people repent and turn back to christ yeah do you think part of it so certainly um there's
00:31:38.760been an apostasy in the west turning from christ uh that is our foundation that's our heritage
00:31:45.180um and as we've rebelled against christ and his principles against um his commands there's
00:31:52.560certainly been judgment we find ourselves being taken over you know by uh we we used you know i
00:31:57.640mean america was a world superpower and you know and at this point that's you know that's up for
00:32:04.660serious debate. And so there's, you know, foreign enemies that have gotten stronger as we've gotten
00:32:10.300weaker. There's all these different forms of judgment because of no-fault divorce and pornography
00:32:16.100and, you know, all these different things where we've turned our back. But it seems like one of
00:32:20.300the judgments also, I think of, you know, the Old Testament prophets that say, you know, that
00:32:23.620part of God's judgment will be that women and children rule over you. And, you know, that I,
00:32:30.640you know, on one hand, I see that as a sin. So on one hand, I feel like you could put in the
00:32:36.440same category as no fault divorce and pornography. You know, you could put female pastors and female0.93
00:32:43.200politicians and senators and, you know, this and that, you can put it over there. But on the other1.00
00:32:47.500hand, you could also put it as, you know, in the category of not the sin, but the judgment. And
00:32:54.600one thing, I guess what I'm building up to is one thing I've noticed about, I'd be interested to
00:32:59.980see this. I'll just, I'm going to say it and somebody in the YouTube comments is going to say,
00:33:03.240no, you know, this survey says you're wrong. But don't women on average commit suicide more than
00:33:11.340men? That's a good question. I know, I certainly know the stat line that when men do it, it's more1.00
00:33:17.420violent. I believe that. Yeah. A gun, you know, women, it's usually pills or something like that.0.94
00:33:22.440You know, I remember reading that. I'm curious, I guess what I'm getting at is one, you know,
00:33:28.660women just aren't supposed to be in that role. And so they're going to struggle in a leadership1.00
00:33:32.100role in a way that a man's not, um, because it's not what they're built for. They're built towards,
00:33:35.840uh, nurturing, um, and, and not, uh, leading in the face of opposition and danger and all these
00:33:41.780kinds of things. Uh, but, um, yeah. So the point is that line, Joel, sorry to interrupt, but the
00:33:47.620stat line is that more women attempt suicide, more men are successful. Okay. There you go.
00:33:55.040All right. Well, yeah, that adds up. I don't know why you're laughing.
00:33:58.500We finish what we start. I'm saying we finish what we start. Yeah. Men, men are, uh, men are
00:34:03.920successful one way or another. Um, so, you know, but my point is this, as you find women in more
00:34:09.440positions of leadership, I do think, all right, so take suicide out of it. I do think that women1.00
00:34:14.040are more susceptible to guilt, um, to being manipulated, um, especially by some kind of
00:34:19.260guilt tactic and and so as you have you know i think of you know even the supreme court you know
00:34:25.180ruling on the the border situation um you know like is it a coincidence that you know that five
00:34:32.300votes you know towards you know let the immigrant in and you know you can't have the razor wire
00:34:37.320right exactly it's all five women one of them you know women of both sexes four women and then one0.98
00:34:43.620honorary woman. John Roberts. But anyways, that's not a coincidence. I think part of the judgment0.93
00:34:52.460of having women and children ruling over you is that they're going to make detrimental decisions.0.96
00:35:00.960Why would that be a judgment? Why is that a bad thing to have women and children rule over you?1.00
00:35:04.880Well, the obvious implication is because they're going to rule poorly. And I don't think it's the0.98
00:35:12.620poor ruling of, well, they're going to burden you and tax you to death and this and that.0.99
00:35:17.360Like, how, how is it that a woman would rule over her citizens that would be toward their1.00
00:35:24.020detriment? Um, I, I think, um, I think it's by, by letting, uh, letting down every barrier,1.00
00:35:31.020every wall, every protection and, uh, and letting their enemies trample them. I don't think it's
00:35:35.480that she tramples them. I think it's that she doesn't, she doesn't possess the fortitude0.74
00:35:41.160to protect her citizens. I think that's the judgment of a female ruler is that the female1.00
00:35:46.120ruler will prefer the foreigner to her own citizens. She'll let this person cause this1.00
00:35:55.040atrocity. And so anyways, I'm wondering how much of where we're at with the West is because of
00:36:01.060our sensuality, because of our rebellion towards Christ, because of all these things, but also
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00:37:10.400yeah yeah i i think a huge part of it it's really interesting as you're talking about this because
00:37:15.960you look through christendom and i'll have dan way in here too but you look through all these
00:37:20.040great epics of christendom like there's rides and fall but like the moments where people step up you
00:37:25.860know again jan sobieski or richard the lionheart it is interesting to me in all the research we've
00:37:31.460done a ton of reading about this um you don't find as much as feminists want to make out of this
00:37:38.200you don't find female rulers doing great things i mean that's like 100 absent you find them doing0.76
00:37:45.000great motherly things and uh great things for their people certainly right um but even stories
00:37:50.340like uh that that you know you think of something like a jael a deborah um you would think like oh
00:37:56.800these would be you know great parts if if if christ had really appointed female apostles as
00:38:01.980some people claim and you know that that they were having pastoral roles like why don't we see that
00:38:07.520historically um but generally what you do see um is is what you said which is you know the supreme
00:38:13.420judgment on the west um i think even today uh i saw somebody say it was like a meme or something
00:38:19.000conservative guy uh but he said you know everybody thinks taylor swift's a hero she's not but you
00:38:24.180know look at lauren bobert and christy noem i'm like christy noem is probably the best of our
00:38:29.380conservative leaders and i think within the last year it came out that for like a long-standing
00:38:33.980time uh she was having an adulterous relationship with one of the trump advisors so it's like that's
00:38:40.260your best right um so so highly problematic certainly judgment um dan i'm curious your
00:38:48.120thoughts though on on christendom am i missing a female here did i miss a female plot line
00:38:52.780i'm trying to recall from my reading um the answer is no you're a genius eric i mean we've
00:39:02.240had queens in christendom before um but i i guess i would point to i know when queen elizabeth
00:39:08.380most recent queen of of england died a lot of people heralded her as like the last great
00:39:16.440christian ruler right as she systematically dismantled one of the greatest empires that
00:39:23.540has ever existed on earth john knox had some things to say to the queens also yes he did
00:39:28.320which was great you know i to your to your point though i i can't think of a great
00:39:33.480female ruler in uh christendom no even even thinking on the queens you know from victoria0.97
00:39:39.920victoria onward that's like you know sort of the heyday in victorian england but like from their1.00
00:39:47.320rule on is like the collapse of the british empire so you know the feminists don't want to0.72
00:39:53.740talk about that and obviously there's a lot more going on but i think it would seem to confirm1.00
00:39:58.220that yeah you've got this judgment obviously catherine the great people like this but then
00:40:02.000you start reading the history and you're like there's a lot of weirdness happening around those
00:40:06.940situations i mean queen mary she uh she executed latimer and ridley and then there was a great
00:40:12.840resurgence of the christian faith because of the persecution so i mean thank you for that you know
00:40:18.120i yeah i can't i'm at a loss i don't know what to tell you yeah i wonder if there were good
00:40:23.160carriage drivers though that's really what i want to know more accidents i don't know all right
00:40:29.840well um yeah so i anyways i just i feel like that's a important element to work in as well
00:40:35.520it's just you know the west has rebelled against its christian heritage and a lot of that has been
00:40:42.220sexual immorality uh sex related sins infidelity adultery no-fault divorce pornography0.90
00:40:49.080transgenderism homosexuality all all these different things um but wrapped up in that i0.92
00:40:55.060don't it's hard to even parse out because it's just this big blob of sin and mess but part of0.95
00:41:00.920it i i just feel like feminism has to has to at least get a mention yeah i don't know if you
00:41:06.380recently watched the tucker uh carl uh tucker galson vladimir putin interview uh but back to
00:41:13.300your point about women and the nature of women uh the scriptures say that women are more easily
00:41:18.200deceived obviously that that means like manipulation guilt manipulation emotional
00:41:23.100manipulation um just believing in in lies they're easier to deceive right to lead astray
00:41:29.400something was really uh just obvious to me as tucker is is um interviewing putin as i look at
00:41:37.340this world leader after having seen joe biden you know now for for some three years and then seeing
00:41:43.780putin i don't he doesn't strike me as a guy that's easily manipulated right it was very apparent that
00:41:52.000he didn't care two figs about what the american media had to say the media propaganda machine
00:41:58.300and that was just really an interesting uh picture between american politicians versus
00:42:03.920you know a russian politician oh i mean it goes to the saying in the u.s you know which is a you
00:42:10.460know departure distinct departure from christendom but today sort of the judgment is we have
00:42:15.260sclerotic old men and the ginocracy and those things are definitely true but but i also think0.99
00:42:20.520it's interesting going back to the the putin interview we talked about how the poison the
00:42:25.260arsenic and in in people's food has been history and i think it was interesting that why did he
00:42:30.940take 30 minutes of a two-hour interview to talk about the history of russia well i think it's
00:42:35.120because history matters it matters a lot and i think if you're going to you know as we look at
00:42:41.800all of this garbage and nonsense we say obviously we have to repent uh we can also draw from history
00:42:46.800that people in the past did repent yes um you know uh you have jan sobieski uh who got it's0.80
00:42:53.000sort of i mean almost in many ways history reads like the book of judges you know like you get
00:42:59.500samson and it says the people turned away from the lord and so he gave them 40 years of oppression
00:43:03.620under the Philistines, and then they repent, and then God brings Samson, and God brings a Jan
00:43:08.860Sobieski, or God brings a Richard the Lionheart. And I think because of that, it's like, well,0.85
00:43:14.800Putin understands history in ways that a lot of Westerners don't, and we could disagree with some
00:43:20.020of it, but we could and should all agree that it is important. You know, that's interesting you
00:43:25.420bring that up because I think the assumption for American Christians is that what does repentance
00:43:32.720look like? I guess that's the question. And I think the assumption is that, oh, we have another
00:43:37.420great awakening. If you look at the histories of the great awakenings in America, they have not
00:43:42.100produced good fruit. Or another revival. We could have a huge revival, and that's going to be the
00:43:47.040way that God causes hearts to turn to him. And if you look at history, if you look at the old
00:43:56.120old covenant, the old Testament, it's usually a small band of courageous men that decide,
00:44:03.400no, that we're going to fight. We're going to stand here and we're going to fight.
00:44:07.920And it ends up turning the hearts of the people back towards God. And that seems to be the pattern
00:44:13.260that God uses throughout history is it either one man or a small group of men that actually turn
00:44:18.920history. And so I guess as an encouragement, it might feel like we're kind of alone in this.
00:44:26.120We're very small. There's not a lot of Christians, I think, the way that we do.
00:44:31.960But you don't know what God can do with just a few brave men. And so it's a call to courage.
00:44:38.580Yep. Amen. Yeah. I've been telling people, if you wanted to boil it down to two things
00:44:44.700in terms of a plan for victory, what would have the highest likelihood of being successful? It
00:44:53.320would be uh honor to the past and hope for the future honor to the past and hope for the future
00:44:59.420like when i look at when i look at um churches that are growing um christians uh like like you
00:45:07.680guys with um with influence um over you know um over other churches and other christians and you
00:45:15.280know that are growing and doing good work and that people are kind of flocking to their message and i
00:45:21.520try to take that message that contains a lot of different elements, but boil it down to just two.
00:45:26.740It seems like the formula, if there is one, is fairly simple. It's honor when looking to
00:45:33.180our past and hope when looking towards our future, which is the exact opposite of what we've had for
00:45:38.260at least 80 years. You think of, some people have called it the post-war consensus, or whatever you
00:45:44.280want to call it. You can call it the post-war consensus. You could call it boomers. You could
00:45:48.640call it um you know you could call it dispensationalism you know you could you know
00:45:53.520that that would put you at 150 years you could you know whatever like there's a you know and
00:45:57.300there's probably you know it's a mix of all that it's the post-war consensus with with a you know
00:46:02.060a healthy dose of you know dispensational zionism and and then some boomer con you know sprinkled
00:46:10.280in there but but if you if you look at their vision um it really has been the opposite of
00:46:15.720what i've just said it's um it's disdain for their fathers disdain for the past and despair
00:46:22.580for the future so you have disdain for the past and despair for the future versus and and then
00:46:29.280you wonder why everything's falling apart like like like why why are we shocked that that wasn't
00:46:34.000a winning strategy yeah right that's what i mean that's you could you could argue all the way back
00:46:37.920to the enlightenment you could say it's been 300 years you could say it's been 150 years since
00:46:41.600Schofield, you know, and dispensationalism, or you can say it's been 80 years, you know,
00:46:45.540with the post-war consensus, but any way you slice it, you know, anywhere from 80 to 300 years in
00:46:50.300the West, that has been the mantra. That has been the battle cry, disdain for the past and despair
00:46:56.660for the future. What do you think about your fathers? I hate them. They're icky, right? What
00:47:01.740do you think about the future? Jesus is coming back next Thursday. Really doesn't matter, right?
00:47:06.760And that like, that's it. And then things crumble and you're, and you're surprised. And, and then,
00:47:11.480you know, and then someone comes around and, and starts a podcast like the King's Hall and says,
00:47:17.500Hey, maybe Christendom wasn't so bad. And maybe it's okay for men to not linger long in their
00:47:22.140prayers, but to actually fight, you know, the enemy that's on their doorstep because they love
00:47:26.520what's behind them, their country, their kinsmen, their wives, their children, their heritage,
00:47:30.920their legacy, and maybe God actually honors that. Maybe Christianity isn't synonymous with suicide.
00:47:40.380Like maybe, you know, because here's the thing, martyrdom, right? Well, you know, the martyrs,
00:47:45.320you know, the blood of the martyrs is the seabed of the church. Yes and amen a thousand times.
00:47:49.140Martyrdom is not suicide. What we're experiencing today is not martyrdom. It is self-induced death.
00:47:56.400it is self-inflicted destruction. Martyrdom is not self-inflicted. That's when you're faithful,
00:48:03.380you're pursuing Christ, you're obeying his commandments, and the enemy just in the
00:48:09.400sovereignty of God, he allows the enemy to come in like a flood, and you're one of the people
00:48:14.560that God in his sovereignty allows to be mowed down. But it wasn't self-inflicted. It wasn't
00:48:20.440a self-fulfilling prophecy. You didn't shoot yourself in the foot. You were obedient to
00:48:25.120christ and christ allowed in that moment in your case for for the opposition um to take you out
00:48:32.180and all that he does for his good and holy purposes and and he uses your life and and and
00:48:37.800the lack of life your death um to bring about immense good for future generations praise god
00:48:42.860that's great the martyrs you know i think of um what is it fox's book of martyrs is that a thing
00:48:48.080like i mean so those you know that's that's wonderful that's wonderful but that is not
00:48:53.300what we're experiencing today. We are not experiencing martyrdom in the West. We are
00:48:57.420in other parts of the world. There are faithful Christians losing their lives for the sake of the0.99
00:49:00.600gospels. But in the West, by and large, it's not martyrdom. It's suicide. That is what we are
00:49:06.500experiencing. And it's because you have people who have this frame of mind, despair when they
00:49:13.200look to the future, when they look forward, and disdain when they look back. So if you have a
00:49:18.720whole generation, a whole nation, a whole culture of people who think that their lineage, their
00:49:26.820heritage, their fathers, their ancestors are icky, and they think that everything they have
00:49:33.380came by oppression and colonization and this and that, and that Jesus is going to come back next
00:49:41.400week. Or if he doesn't, if they lost, it'd be great. That would actually be a win because
00:49:46.600everything they have they don't deserve it was it was uh accumulated wrongfully then i mean that
00:49:52.740like that is is going to lose there's no way that that mindset ever wins and my my whole point in
00:50:00.200saying all that is that is the regime you're right eric you mentioned that earlier that that is our
00:50:04.320leftist progressive atheistic secular humanist regime but it's also evangelicals yeah like it's
00:50:11.060not it's not like and it's not even it's barely even nuanced it's barely even has a christian
00:50:16.100spin on it it's almost verbatim the exact same rhetoric of our past was bad um you know this was
00:50:24.600bad that was bad um and and you know uh for the leftist it's like global warming is going to kill
00:50:31.460us next week for the evangelicals jesus is going to come back next week you know but both agree
00:50:36.060that our fathers were bad and um and if we lose everything good yeah and i i mean no kind of issue
00:50:44.520more can you see this i guess than the crusades right you had uh karen armstrong and other you
00:50:50.900know leftists who've karen i think is a former nun uh but other people who've been pushing back0.80
00:50:56.400against you know sort of the the truth which was that you know the muslims invaded and christianity
00:51:03.100was defending itself and uh but yet today we're told that you know you know campus crusade for
00:51:09.260christ you had to change your name to crew right still a huge uh part of the part of the name
00:51:14.420which is ironic we'll start landing the plane maybe you could address this dan while eric
00:51:22.400takes a quick break but i was just thinking um we'd be remiss if we're talking about the crusades
00:51:27.300and all these kinds of things if we didn't take at least here at the very end of the episode a
00:51:31.300moment to talk about the zero contribution of Muslims. You know, as I've been reading, seriously,1.00
00:51:38.360as I've been reading, you know, all these books, you know, the same kind of books that you guys
00:51:41.520are reading, I've been, I mean, I shouldn't say I'm shocked. I was looking for it. I did go in
00:51:48.860with this presupposition expecting it, but it has exceeded all my expectations that part of the0.78
00:51:56.220reason the Christians, I mean, of course the Lord Jesus, Lord of Lords and King of Kings is on their
00:52:00.980side but also they have cross bows and they have roman fire or greek fire and they have you know0.98
00:52:07.120this and they have that and muslims have nothing like down to the design of their shields and1.00
00:52:12.980swords like it's like everything they make is is terrible yeah yeah they had any horses and1.00
00:52:19.220terrible armor and yeah they did yeah but apparently they invented calculus and a bunch
00:52:24.480of other stuff so right and and that's what i found that interesting too because when it came
00:52:28.740to exactly when it came to like science and philosophers and medical physicians and these
00:52:35.080kinds of things, one of the things that was, I forget which one it was. I think it was either
00:52:40.400Rodney Stark, God's Battalions, or maybe it was Defenders of the West. I think it was God's
00:52:44.500Battalions, Rodney Stark. But one of the things he said is that if you look into all these alleged
00:52:50.680contributions historically um from from islam uh it actually if you like okay but who was the
00:52:58.480philosopher what was his name or what was his origin oh he was a christian yeah that they took
00:53:03.920over gave him like kind of like a nebuchadnezzar with daniel and shadrach and meshach and abednego
00:53:08.600right you give them babylonian names uh but your best advisors they're all hebrews like
00:53:14.040for yashir ali who is also known as bob smith right exactly exactly until he was conquered
00:53:22.740and the only way and then you you know to play the devil's advocate they you know somebody well
00:53:26.460well then but if they were complete losers and had zero contributions then how do they conquer
00:53:31.420all the time which i would just say sheer numbers is what do you have another answer to that how do
00:53:36.400they ever win tactics their tactics uh with um yeah and we can we can talk about that i think
00:53:42.240that's that's actually really interesting something eric would like to talk about that
00:53:45.700actually ties into uh dracul dracul by dragula vlad the impaler we can we can bring him up what
00:53:53.960a king all right let's do that that can be the final segment of the episode but can can you
00:53:59.860basically eric to catch you up i was just talking to dan i said we'd be remiss if we didn't cover
00:54:04.580in this episode here at the very end um the absolute nothing burger of contributions that
00:54:10.380come from Muslims throughout history. And I was just saying, you know, like anytime they, you1.00
00:54:16.460know, they did, you know, allegedly contribute something, whether it be in philosophy or this1.00
00:54:20.220or that, the other, you find out that, you know, oh, that's actually not a Muslim. That was like0.74
00:54:25.780a Christian nation that you conquered. And so like Nebuchadnezzar, you know, Shadrach, Meshach,0.97
00:54:29.780and Abednego, you know, it's like, oh, these are our best, you know, our best advisors. Oh,
00:54:34.140they're all Hebrews, you know, like you just gave them Babylonian names. And yet all that being said,
00:54:39.880to be fair, like the Muslims conquered though. They won, they won a considerable amount of0.99
00:54:45.660battles. So how, how is it that they don't have the crossbows because they can't, you know, how,
00:54:50.260how is it that you hate, you hate Christ who is the true God and therefore you've rejected
00:54:56.840the world as he made it. And therefore naturally you, you, it only makes sense that you're,
00:55:04.100you're dishonoring, you're not honoring God. So you're not honoring the laws that he set up in
00:55:09.000his world. So you're not going to have some of the advancements that those who do acknowledge
00:55:14.880God have, but the Muslims still kick some butt from time to time. How'd they pull that off?1.00
00:55:22.600You got crossbows on one side, and then on the other side, you're throwing rocks.1.00
00:55:27.680How did the Muslims win? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think a lot of it,1.00
00:55:31.160if you look at the people who, Christians particularly, who spoke about it at the time,
00:55:35.520It's interesting how many of them referred to the Muslims as demons, you know, somehow demonically backed.
00:55:41.180And then you start reading about the things that the Muslims, you know, which are, you know, Moors, Turks, Saracens, there's a bunch of different kinds, but fundamentally under the banner of Islam.0.98
00:55:51.340But it's so interesting when you see what they did, you know, they're slaughtering people by the tens of thousands in certain battles, selling women and children into slavery, raping them.0.96
00:56:02.060there's actually a lot of homosexuality uh as well this is how you get somebody like vlad0.77
00:56:07.340and his brother who were sort of like harem boys for the sultan and uh you know stuff like that
00:56:13.920where you're like oh why was why was vlad so angry at the muslims and why did he use their tactics
00:56:19.220against them well because he was probably the victim of uh pedophilia um so anyway yeah and
00:56:25.800you look at the kind of the cultural thing and you say well i think rightly the judgment of the lord
00:56:31.560is present in why are they victorious? Again, the Christians were asking that question quite a lot
00:56:37.160too. And even as we might today, wrestling with it. It's a tough question. And there wasn't
00:56:42.500necessarily just one answer. But also, this is sort of one of the great myths comes up in Rodney
00:56:48.860Stark's book, God's Battalions, which is really helpful, was this idea that all of culture, art,
00:56:55.900history, etc. was somehow best in the Muslim form. When in point of fact, what you find from
00:57:02.860history is that Islam would conquer by the scimitar. They would conquer in blood. They1.00
00:57:08.460would take a people and within about 100 to 200 years, it would be thoroughly Muslim. And the1.00
00:57:13.700culture would have deteriorated almost completely. And a lot of the glories of the culture would be
00:57:19.800lost. So one prime example, the library at Alexandria, one of the greatest libraries
00:57:24.960probably ever probably ever built and you have the muslims this is crazy today people will say1.00
00:57:32.040well the muslims didn't burn it down well they sure claim to have burned it down um in their1.00
00:57:36.420own literature it says we burned it down like if it's not in the quran then we don't need it so1.00
00:57:40.540we're going to burn it actually they did have a culture of anti-intellectualism yes that's part1.00
00:57:45.520of the motivation for them burning it down yeah so that's interesting but they invited invented
00:57:50.900calculus so yeah they claim to have invented calculus we didn't know what the number zero0.86
00:57:55.000was until the muslims came along and told us um and it's really interesting because you look at0.60
00:57:59.280that and you say okay well is that historically true but certainly there were some advancements
00:58:04.160that took place um technological science literature astronomy that took place under
00:58:10.380islam but it was usually because they conquered a christian nation and changed the person's name
00:58:15.380to you know muhammad al-dirka or whatever but you go back in history and you're like it was like
00:58:19.500steve smith you know and and steve was a christian um who had all this knowledge wisdom etc so a lot
00:58:25.700of it yeah they conquered they stole that um and then claim it for their own of course in in in
00:58:31.100their histories it's also interesting to point out though that europe was actually advancing
00:58:34.960pretty rapidly under christendom in this time period one of the reasons they were so successful
00:58:39.680in the crusades when those came around was because they were bigger faster and stronger because of
00:58:44.440food production. They'd figured out different plowing systems. So Europe's having this boom,
00:58:49.480and then you have Islam, which is a tribal raiding religion, which is multiplying,1.00
00:58:56.480but really through very, very different means. So sort of that whole narrative that Islam had
00:59:02.120technology and we didn't is patently false. Interesting. All right. Well, I'll leave you
00:59:09.220with this. One last question. It's a banger. You may not want to answer, but I'm going to
00:59:13.460throw it out there. Over the course of Christendom, now really just, you know, the last 2,000 years
00:59:20.840in this New Testament gospel age, what do you think is the bigger, most formidable enemy0.74
00:59:27.260to the Christian faith, Islam or Judaism?
00:59:34.080Yeah, it's an interesting question, Joel, because even during the Crusades,
00:59:38.040several of the Crusades get derailed because the Christians will get into conflict with the Jewish
00:59:44.840people. And it's interesting why that was. The Jews, a lot of times, were selling Christians0.69
00:59:50.440out to the Muslims. The Jews were often siding with the Muslims. You get into the Holy Land0.55
00:59:56.380and Jerusalem, and a lot of that conflict was actually pretty intense, the Jews and Christians
01:00:02.440hating each other i think in terms of uh during medieval times certainly the the violence doled
01:00:11.180out by islam is substantial um it is immense and so i think uh from that perspective uh just by like0.95
01:00:19.940sheer number and sheer bloodbath it seems to be the muslims are kind of at the center not kind of1.00
01:00:25.540they're at the center of kind of all of this you know um now i would say too though it's interesting1.00
01:00:30.240when you look at history, you can also have groups of people which impact. We were talking
01:00:34.980about the Frankfurt School and Marcuse. Marcuse is one guy. So you're not looking at it and saying
01:00:39.000like, how much wrath did one guy who was an atheistic Jew, as were many in the Frankfurt
01:00:46.100School, how much impact did he have that's detrimental to the West? How many children
01:00:51.980today in the last 10 years have cut their genitalia off because of CRT and because of wokeness,1.00
01:00:57.980this marxist atheistic jewish you know type religion so it's like that's maybe just harder1.00
01:01:03.920to calculate the impact but in many ways in many ways i think you could say that the plague of crt0.99
01:01:11.160and wokeness all of that stuff that's internal and has caused us to lose our mind in many ways
01:01:17.540that's been worse than the external enemy because many times the external enemy would actually rouse
01:01:24.040you to i don't know what that is is that our soundboard sounds like we found like a
01:01:35.020treasure we have like a we have like an absolute glitch on the soundboard dan's not even touching
01:01:40.700it i promise no one is touching the soundboard and i wouldn't use that one i would do the i'm0.88
01:02:10.440this many thousands of people died at the0.99
01:02:12.760sword at an islamic sword you know well and it's interesting today too because like both enemies
01:02:17.880jewish and islamic um in different forms like and not all muslims and you know tucker carlson's in
01:02:24.480the uae and you know it seems to be a pretty peaceable event and and so there's it's not like0.73
01:02:29.400entire people groups right but like you have different types of threat that still come from
01:02:34.300uh islam um that's still real um and people are still you know kindergartners in ireland0.80
01:02:39.940getting butchered by islamic terrorists um you see this in france in in fact there are websites0.63
01:02:45.220that track this and and people like to not think about that uh but battle of vienna september0.87
01:02:50.46011th there's a reason that you know the twin towers fell on september 11th that's when0.58
01:02:54.800you know this is orchestrated uh that when basically islam was crushed by the west0.62
01:03:00.240in this epic uh epic battle so i i think that those threats are are still real i think they're
01:03:07.480just different uh but i also think it's interesting when you think about something like dispensationalism
01:03:12.280the one thing you'll never find in the reading of christendom is people who wanted jerusalem to be
01:03:18.160like a jewish citadel okay like islam didn't want that none of the christians wanted that there's
01:03:24.080there's nothing of like post 1940s like zionism when you read the histories like yeah richard0.75
01:03:30.440the lionheart wanted to take jerusalem for christians right they weren't trying to defend
01:03:35.400it for a zionist movement or cause like that so i think some of that too is just helpful
01:03:39.420understanding like where maybe some of these movements come from how much influence do they
01:03:43.300have today versus what they had in the past right dan any final thoughts yeah i think that
01:03:49.320really the the greater enemy immediately is uh judaism simply because of you know eric talk
01:03:57.220spoke a lot on this uh the attack of ideas uh propaganda and and just the wealth also you look
01:04:05.240into the history of the rothschilds and and fomenting war and playing both sides uh anyway0.91
01:04:10.560uh do your own research on that but the question that i have to ask is so islam muslims they hate0.97
01:04:19.660the west i mean they hate the west we're infidels we're dogs to them right and subhuman if you're0.99
01:04:27.640yeah subhuman and in fact part of their religion is is to wage jihad against us and and they have0.68
01:04:34.440rewards and everything like that uh in eternity from Allah if they do that so why does the United0.95
01:04:40.780States not have more terror attacks why well I think there's a fairly obvious reason and it's
01:04:47.660back to your earlier conversation about suicide is that when your enemy is destroying themselves
01:04:53.240don't get in their way right so why would they attack so that's why I would say I think long1.00
01:04:59.000term islam you know the muslims are are a much bigger danger but currently we're being destroyed1.00
01:05:05.720by judaism yeah and a lot of it too even uh you know we talked to raymond ibrahim he would even1.00
01:05:12.040say like uh the muslims will speak of like a propaganda jihad so we think about you know you
01:05:17.800just do the research like how much do these like lobbies spend in america from each of these0.51
01:05:23.000nationalities look at the numbers you'd be astounded um and then and i think it's like
01:05:27.660how much impact is it having you know when we have minneapolis which is like little somalia
01:05:33.100um and you know you have settlements like that happening but yet you have people in texas who
01:05:38.960don't want to defend our own border and people a lot of that actually comes from the propaganda
01:05:43.520side first and so i think just assessing those things and saying you know it it's very dangerous
01:05:49.020and and then but i would just close with saying like the whole reason for season three of the
01:05:53.880king's hall the whole reason we're trying to encourage people is because if you can't defeat
01:05:58.100the enemy within yourself if you can't defeat that enemy and you can't believe the truth
01:06:02.920and you can't have a community that believes that like you don't stand a chance against any
01:06:07.720outside force it doesn't even matter um and so i think getting that right uh even starting in the
01:06:12.840church i think my approach certainly after reading about the crusades is like i think we've been too
01:06:18.500soft with big eba i think we've been too soft with these people are trying to like destroy your way
01:06:23.780of life they're trying to destroy the christian faith and so i know you want to play nice with
01:06:28.040you know tim keller type people and you know oh he's dead we can't talk about him but it's like0.87
01:06:33.160that stuff is absolute rat poison it's disgusting and demonic in many ways and so we just have to
01:06:38.480treat it that way and i think our forefathers would have as well deus vault oh yeah definitely0.89
01:06:43.420amen yeah i you talk about like you know hating the west and it's you know why why not more you
01:06:50.920know islamic terrorist attacks and these kind of i i kept thinking you know my head of just
01:06:55.820picturing like uh the the matrix movie you know and like um what you know you can hate someone
01:07:02.420but still not destroy them if you could use them for a greater purpose you know like you could
01:07:08.340wipe out humanity or you could plug them to the matrix and drain them all like batteries
01:07:13.120you know like why why destroy the west when um all america is at this point is a tax farm
01:07:18.660I mean, we're a tax farm. We're not a country because you're not allowed to be. If you want
01:07:24.740to be an actual place and actual people, like you say, blood and soil, and immediately you're
01:07:32.220going to be deemed as a racist. I didn't even say what color the people were. Blood, as far as I
01:07:39.580remember, it's always red, but just people and place, people and place. That is a nation. It's
01:07:43.920not an economic zone. It's not an idea. It's not a, it's not a principle set of principles.
01:07:50.120But these days it's, we're definitely not a nation in the, in the way that nations are
01:07:55.960supposed to be people and place and borders and these kinds of things. We're certainly not that,
01:08:00.420but we're not even America, even as an economic zone or as, as a set of principles, we're not
01:08:06.320even that anymore. America is literally, it's, it's just, it's a tax farm. It's like the matrix.
01:08:11.160It's a bunch of people plugged into Netflix or, or, you know, virtual Apple goggles or whatever, you know, or Superbowl, sports ball, you know, a Taylor Swifty, you know, and, and, and they just, and then they just farm our, farm us, our, our taxes.0.69
01:08:27.680And here's, here you go, Ukraine, here you go, Israel, here you go, this, here you go, that.0.68